Can't boot off the flashed SD card for 19.10

[spiff72]

I have been banging my head against the table for 2 days with my Pi4 4GB...

I flashed an SD card with 19.10 (32bit) a couple of days ago and got it to boot fine. (Actually I tried the 64 bit first, but that wouldn't boot). I then decided that I didn't like the lubuntu desktop, and wanted to do the standard ubuntu desktop.

I tried flashing the 32 bit again to the same card, and when i put it in the pi and plug in power, I get a brief series of pulsations from the green LED, and then nothing. No further activity from the green LED. The monitor backlight turns on as if it is seeing a signal (or at least a connection), but no boot sequence.

I have since tried several combinations of Etcher, Win32DiskImager, Ubuntu command line flashing, to no avail (both the 32 and 64 bit images). I also confirmed the SHA256 hashes of my downloads. When trying the 64bit, I added the total_ram=3072 line. I also tried with and without overclock on the 32 bit image.

I am stumped. It worked once, but never again. I even tried 2 additional brand new SD cards (32GB).

Any suggestions? I am pulling my hair out trying to figure out what is wrong!

[trejan]

What pattern is the green LED flashing? Have you tried the latest Raspbian?

[spiff72]

I have a fully functional Raspian card set up that boots perfectly. This one is actually configured to boot (mostly) off an external USB SSD.

This was my goal with ubuntu as well, but I can't get the initial boot off SDcard to work.

The led isnt a distinguishable pattern (not like the steady blinking you get with no sd card installed. It is more of a flickering period of about 5 seconds.

Now that I think about it, the raspbian setup was set up for sd card only booting when I first removed it and got the first flash of ubuntu to work. Could that be the issue? Maybe I will try setting raspbian to not boot from ssd, then remove it and try the ubuntu card? I don't see how this would make a difference unless some aspect of the boot setup remains on the pi when sd card is removed...

[spiff72]

What pattern is the green LED flashing? Have you tried the latest Raspbian?

Possible progress...

Now I get this (see photo), but it gets stuck.

https://imgur.com/m7YnsCf

[phase]

have you tried to utilize the image link 64 bit version in the thread below.. i had it up and running first boot..i did modify the
usercfg,txt file after flashing it but before i booted it...

i added these comments...there over clocked value parameters you can omit the ones i coded but include the audio line...i then ran an update and then loaded mate desktop..the memory adjust i left out.......
my usb 3 ports seem to work i have not had a hdd on them just keyboard and mouse..

Code: Select all

arm_freq=2000
over_volt=4
gpu=750

dtparam=audio=on

i used etcher to flash it on a 16Gb sd

[spiff72]

have you tried to utilize the image link 64 bit version in the thread below.. i had it up and running first boot..i did modify the
usercfg,txt file after flashing it but before i booted it...

i added these comments...there over clocked value parameters you can omit the ones i coded but include the audio line...i then ran an update and then loaded mate desktop..the memory adjust i left out.......
my usb 3 ports seem to work i have not had a hdd on them just keyboard and mouse..

Code: Select all

arm_freq=2000
over_volt=4
gpu=750

dtparam=audio=on

i used etcher to flash it on a 16Gb sd

My most recent attempt (the result of which is shown in the image link in my last post) was a new download of the 32 and 64 bit images from this thread:
https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/view ... 1&t=258532

The weird characters in the screen grab actually started out filling the screen and then stopped filling, but the last characters continue blinking. I tried BOTH the 64bit and 32bit images and both did the same.

When I was trying to overclock the 32 bit image in the past, I used:

Code: Select all

over_voltage=4
arm_freq=2000
gpu_freq=600

...and this syntax is different than yours for the voltage and gpu.