create a small SD-boot to sda

[Johan Nilsson]

Hey

Installed Armbian (Ubuntu-noble) with XFCE desktop on an HDD(sda) from SD-card, so I need to have an SD-card in my orange pi zero 2w. I wonder if I can move /boot to an another smaller SD-card? Or do I also need an "mbr" or someting also there u-boot are?

/Cheers

[eselarm]

I assume OPi02w has no on-board storage, so it only is the bootcode in ROM, and that reads U-Boot binary blob from fixed sector offset location on the SD-card. It does not even need a MBR-table or GPT and it is not in a partition, so you won't see it. Only if you use dd to read (or write/wipe) that data you will know. See how U-Boot needs to be written for your OPi02w, then you will understand.

 

If the U-Boot is build to initialize the USB and HDD, you do not need /boot partition on the SD-card. But I do not know that. Not all USB-SATA chipset drivers are in U-Boot, so if not, you indeed need a boot partition on de SD-card where kernel initrd DTB are, those should understand USB-SATA chips and so see the rootfs on HDD.