Booting Armbian without EMMC

[Kevin Putra Satrianto]

Hi all, I have this Amlogic S905x2 (ddr3l) android tv box which I'm trying to boot Armbian on.

 

Firstly, I was having issue with the default bootloader always booting into android, no matter if I used the sd card or usb. So then I lifted the emmc chip, in hope that it will then choose to boot from the sd card.

 

However, I failed to notice that BL2 is stored in the emmc, and as you guessed, I need BL2 to boot into linux.

 

Now I've read that you can use USB burning tool to send and start BL2 from RAM. However, I've no idea what to do next and what file am I even supposed to send via the USB Burning tool.

 

I would be very thankful for any assistance.

[SteeMan]

From what I know it isn't possible to boot without emmc on the amlogic TV boxes

[Kevin Putra Satrianto]

I see. Is this a hardware enforced security feature of sort?

 

Because according to:

https://docs.u-boot.org/en/latest/board/amlogic/boot-flow.html, the s905x2 can read the bootloader from sd card no matter the configuration. Only the order differs.

 

I'm now trying to compile u-boot down from BL2 up to BL33 using this closest match of a board. It has a ddr4 memory while mine is ddr3l, but as shown in the doc it also includes ddr3 firmwares so I *hope* this will work.

https://docs.u-boot.org/en/latest/board/amlogic/sei510.html

 

However, if I'm talkin nonsense please let me know. This is my first dive into u-boot or bootloaders in general.