• How to diagnose failure to boot from USB?

    From Chris Green@21:1/5 to All on Mon Dec 13 21:22:36 2021
    I have written a Pi image to a little (spinning) USB drive I have and
    have connected it to my Pi 4. It's the same image as I recently
    installed on a new SD card.

    I have gone through the various update checks for the eeprom and
    related things (I think, I've followed a couple of web sites
    descriptions).

    I have changed the BOOT_ORDER entry in the eeprom using
    rpi-eeprom-config to 0x41 which should try USB first and then the SD
    card.

    ... and it doesn't boot from USB, it thinks for a fairly long time and
    then boots from the SD card (fortunately since the Pi is rather
    inacessible out in the garage).

    If I manually mount the USB drive it appears to have the correct
    partitions and types with all the usual files etc.

    The system does have two USB drives, is there any logic to which it
    will try to boot from? (The drive with the boot image is /dev/sda so
    is the 'first' USB drive)

    Any ideas gratefully received.

    --
    Chris Green
    ·

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Chris Elvidge@21:1/5 to Chris Green on Mon Dec 13 22:45:46 2021
    On 13/12/2021 21:22, Chris Green wrote:
    The system does have two USB drives, is there any logic to which it
    will try to boot from? (The drive with the boot image is /dev/sda so
    is the 'first' USB drive)

    Any ideas gratefully received.

    When I tried this (admittedly on a Pi3) with 2 USB drives (one SSD and
    one HDD) I got the same sort of problem. In the end I gave up and now
    boot from a (small) SD card (FAT boot partition) having changed the
    cmdline.txt file to point to the UUID of the USB SSD I use as root device.

    --
    Chris Elvidge
    England

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jim Jackson@21:1/5 to Chris Green on Mon Dec 13 22:31:55 2021
    I don't boot from the USB drive, so I have no idea what the eeprom
    loader does. In my setup I boot from the SD card - i.e. the /boot VFAT partition with the kernel etc on.

    The cmdline.txt file in the boot partition specifies to the kernel where the root partition is - you need to change that. you need to know the uuid
    of the root partition then change the "root=...." parameter to be

    root=UUID=magic_uuid_number

    The kenrel will then know where to look for the root filesystem.

    On 2021-12-13, Chris Green <cl@isbd.net> wrote:
    I have written a Pi image to a little (spinning) USB drive I have and
    have connected it to my Pi 4. It's the same image as I recently
    installed on a new SD card.

    I have gone through the various update checks for the eeprom and
    related things (I think, I've followed a couple of web sites
    descriptions).

    I have changed the BOOT_ORDER entry in the eeprom using
    rpi-eeprom-config to 0x41 which should try USB first and then the SD
    card.

    ... and it doesn't boot from USB, it thinks for a fairly long time and
    then boots from the SD card (fortunately since the Pi is rather
    inacessible out in the garage).

    If I manually mount the USB drive it appears to have the correct
    partitions and types with all the usual files etc.

    The system does have two USB drives, is there any logic to which it
    will try to boot from? (The drive with the boot image is /dev/sda so
    is the 'first' USB drive)

    Any ideas gratefully received.


    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From bob prohaska@21:1/5 to Chris Green on Tue Dec 14 00:06:06 2021
    Chris Green <cl@isbd.net> wrote:
    I have written a Pi image to a little (spinning) USB drive I have and
    have connected it to my Pi 4. It's the same image as I recently
    installed on a new SD card.

    I have gone through the various update checks for the eeprom and
    related things (I think, I've followed a couple of web sites
    descriptions).

    I have changed the BOOT_ORDER entry in the eeprom using
    rpi-eeprom-config to 0x41 which should try USB first and then the SD
    card.

    ... and it doesn't boot from USB, it thinks for a fairly long time and
    then boots from the SD card (fortunately since the Pi is rather
    inacessible out in the garage).

    You might try the "bootcode.bin-only" boot mode: https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/raspberry-pi.html#special-bootcode-bin-only-boot-mode

    It worked for me in one case and failed in another, so your odds of success
    are likely to be about 50:50 8-)

    As a sanity check, you might try putting the microSD card in a USB
    adapter and seeing if that will boot; if it does, most likely there's
    a problem with how long the disk takes to wake up. If it doesn't,
    maybe check the OTP bit for USB boot.

    I've been having trouble along the same lines (getting a Pi3 to boot
    from a hard drive) for some time now with FreeBSD, so if you find
    something interesting please post!

    bob prohaska

    If I manually mount the USB drive it appears to have the correct
    partitions and types with all the usual files etc.

    The system does have two USB drives, is there any logic to which it
    will try to boot from? (The drive with the boot image is /dev/sda so
    is the 'first' USB drive)

    Any ideas gratefully received.


    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Vincent Coen@21:1/5 to All on Tue Dec 14 15:02:42 2021
    Hello Chris!

    Monday December 13 2021 21:22, you wrote to All:

    On a 3B+ I have a HDD in a 825? casing along with the daughter board.
    I followed the instructions to install the O/S via a SD card (I think) using specific software then REMOVED the SD card and rebooted.

    Since then no problems.

    I do not use two USB drives so suggest you try one at a time without the SD card present.

    The software build the image onto a HDD and partitions it but you do not seem to having any control of the partitions, sizing etc - it just does it.

    Vince


    I have written a Pi image to a little (spinning) USB drive I have and
    have connected it to my Pi 4. It's the same image as I recently
    installed on a new SD card.

    I have gone through the various update checks for the eeprom and
    related things (I think, I've followed a couple of web sites
    descriptions).

    I have changed the BOOT_ORDER entry in the eeprom using
    rpi-eeprom-config to 0x41 which should try USB first and then the SD
    card.

    ... and it doesn't boot from USB, it thinks for a fairly long time and
    then boots from the SD card (fortunately since the Pi is rather
    inacessible out in the garage).

    If I manually mount the USB drive it appears to have the correct
    partitions and types with all the usual files etc.

    The system does have two USB drives, is there any logic to which it
    will try to boot from? (The drive with the boot image is /dev/sda so
    is the 'first' USB drive)

    Any ideas gratefully received.

    --
    Chris Green
    ·


    Vincent

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)