NVMe not recognized on OrangePi 5 with Armbian

[smurfx]

Armbianmonitor:

https://paste.armbian.com/nubeniduko

Hi everyone,

 

I just installed Armbian on my OrangePi 5, but I can't get it to recognize the NVMe drive. I've tried the official OrangePi Ubuntu distro, and it detects the NVMe without any issues. However, when using Armbian, it simply doesn't show up.

I'm not sure what to do at this point. I would really like to use Armbian, but it seems unable to detect the NVMe on this particular device. Interestingly, I have another OrangePi 5 Pro where I installed Armbian, and it recognizes the NVMe and works perfectly fine — but not on the standard OrangePi 5.

Does anyone know how to fix this issue, or can you recommend a good alternative?

 

Quote

root@orangepi5:~# lsblk
NAME        MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
mtdblock0    31:0    0    16M  0 disk
mmcblk0     179:0    0 238.8G  0 disk
└─mmcblk0p1 179:1    0 236.3G  0 part /var/log.hdd
                                      /
zram0       252:0    0   7.8G  0 disk [SWAP]
zram1       252:1    0    50M  0 disk /var/log
zram2       252:2    0     0B  0 disk
 

 

Thank you in advance.

[eselarm]

43 minutes ago, smurfx said:

https://paste.armbian.com/nubeniduko

Log shows nothing about PCIE when 6.19.0-edge-rockchip64, it does when 6.18.8-current-rockchip64

 

If you just upgraded the kernel via apt, then this might be the point where an older U-Boot is incompatible with newer kernel. This is the case for all Rockchip devices I have and not strange. It is like it is, so if you want edge or newest or even standard Debian sid/unstable/testing kernel, you will need to look at that in more detail.

 

I have been spending a lot of time on it, it is simply what you want or need. If you want all RK3588 silicon HW support, so like video encoders, stick to vendor based U-Boot and kernel.

I you want a generic computer that is good enough for server tasks and web-browsing etc, use mainline based U-Boot and kernel.

 

Of course something else might be wrong, but reporting U-Boot version would be needed and helpful first I think.

Edited 2 hours ago by eselarm

[smurfx]

Hey @eselarm,

 

Thanks for the quick answer. My goal is indeed having a more generic computer for server tasks.  The version of the u-boot is:

 

Quote

root@orangepi5:~# dpkg -l | grep u-boot
ii  linux-u-boot-orangepi5-current    26.2.1                            arm64        Das U-Boot for orangepi5
ii  u-boot-tools                      2025.10-0ubuntu0.24.04.2          arm64        companion tools for Das U-Boot bootloader
root@orangepi5:~# uname -a
Linux orangepi5 6.18.10-current-rockchip64 #2 SMP PREEMPT Wed Feb 11 12:42:01 UTC 2026 aarch64 aarch64 aarch64 GNU/Linux

I have switched again to the orangepi5 6.18.10-current-rockchip64 kernel but still not showing nothing.

 

Thank you.

[eselarm]

10 minutes ago, smurfx said:

linux-u-boot-orangepi5-current    26.2.1

You need the U-Boot source-code version; I at least cannot conclude on it; 

You can watch the start-up via serial console, then you will see. Or like this:

root@rock3a:~# strings  /dev/mtdblock0 | grep "U-Boot SPL 20"
U-Boot SPL 2017.09-armbian (May 20 2024 - 00:46:51)

 

I see you have 2 options: which U-Boot is used: mtdblock0 (the SPI-flash) or mmcblk0 (SD-card) ??

Edited 1 hour ago by eselarm

[smurfx]

Strangely I can't get any outcome from that command:

 

Quote

root@orangepi5:~# lsblk
NAME        MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
mtdblock0    31:0    0    16M  0 disk
mmcblk0     179:0    0 238.8G  0 disk
└─mmcblk0p1 179:1    0 236.3G  0 part /var/log.hdd
                                      /
zram0       252:0    0   7.8G  0 disk [SWAP]
zram1       252:1    0    50M  0 disk /var/log
zram2       252:2    0     0B  0 disk
root@orangepi5:~# strings  /dev/mtdblock0 | grep "U-Boot SPL 20"
root@orangepi5:~# strings  /dev/mtdblock0 | grep "U-Boot"
root@orangepi5:~# strings  /dev/mtdblock0
root@orangepi5:~# grep -a --null-data "U-Boot" /dev/mtdblock0
root@orangepi5:~#
 

Now I am confused if there is something else going on, however, the OrangePi official distro recognised the nvme disk.

[smurfx]

The only thing I could manage to get information from was this:

 

Quote

root@orangepi5:~# dd if=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=1M count=4 2>/dev/null | strings | grep -i "u-boot" | head -1
u-boot,spl-boot-order

I had to rewrite the SPI-flash and now I see:

 

Quote

root@orangepi5:~# strings  /dev/mtdblock0 | grep "U-Boot SPL 20"
U-Boot SPL 2025.10_armbian-2025.10-Se50b-P4b2d-Hd43a-Va0a8-B2eb2-R448a (Feb 01 2026 - 04:51:01 +0000)

 

 

Btw, this is the output when I was using the official OrangePI Ubuntu distro:

 

Quote

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ lsblk
NAME        MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
loop0         7:0    0  69.2M  1 loop /snap/core22/1624
loop1         7:1    0  94.4M  1 loop /snap/lxd/30134
loop2         7:2    0  33.7M  1 loop /snap/snapd/21761
loop3         7:3    0  41.8M  1 loop /snap/snapd/26383
sda           8:0    0   1.8T  0 disk
└─sda1        8:1    0   1.8T  0 part
mmcblk1     179:0    0 238.8G  0 disk
├─mmcblk1p1 179:1    0     4M  0 part
└─mmcblk1p2 179:2    0 238.7G  0 part /
nvme0n1     259:0    0 238.5G  0 disk

 

Edited 1 hour ago by smurfx