Unable to Boot RPI 3B from SSD disk

[blacktek]

Hello, I've just received https://www.amazon.it/dp/B00N4JLNXM/ but it has not the "hoped" chipset, but the ASMedia 2105

At first test without power adapter it did not work. Then I plugged the external power adapter of the usb/sata converter and it worked.

Does it mean that the RPI3 was unable to powerup the ssd disk? it's strange. I see it uses a max current of 0.7A

The boot from SSD works without any SD on board, but if I put the SD on board the latter takes precedence. Is it the correct behaviour?

Anyway: problem solved

I hope that this experience helps somebody else

[LTolledo]

Glad you had it working..

Yes, booting from microSD card takes priority than USB boot.

Also you might notice that the green LED to be flashing regularly if you boot from USB SSD.

To "silence" it edit config.txt and inset this at the bottom

Code: Select all

dtoverlay=sdtweak,poll_once

do an update and full-upgrade before rebooting


have fun!

[blacktek]

hi, what do you think about the "working only with power adapter"? it was just the boot requiring power adapter

[LTolledo]

hi, what do you think about the "working only with power adapter"? it was just the boot requiring power adapter

You mean that you will only apply power to the SATA to USB adaptor during boot and then remove it once the RPi has booted?

I may not be able to confirm that because I dont have similar powered adaptors....

You are booting from SSD right?

[blacktek]

I mean that if I use the usb/sata adapter without power adapter then the RPI boot doesn't work. But after RPI boots from SSD I'm able to see and access the ssd disk. If I remove the SSD the RPI doesn't boot at all.

If I use the power adapter everything works properly. Strange not? it seems that at boot there is some spike that cannot be handled by the RPI and the SSD doesn't work properly in the first few seconds, don't understand what's going on.

any clue? nice to understand things

[LTolledo]

The powered adaptor cable's internal circuitry needs to get powered from the adaptor's PSU (5v? 12v?). It seems not to get its power from the bus side (RPi side).

Just tried it on my 12v powered HDD SATA case with the JMicron chipset.
I plugged my 240GB SSD boot drive to the SATA connector, plugged the USB cable to RPi3B USB port.
with 12v power unplugged, turned on the power to RPi3B (USB boot enabled). No boot (no joy was others would call it).tuned off power
with 12v power plugged, turned on power to RPi3B, it booted.

so no power to SATA adaptor's circuitry, wont run at all.

I dont know of any self powered SATA to USB 3.0 adaptors that can be used also as bus powered SATA to USB3.0 adaptors .

[blacktek]

The powered adaptor cable's internal circuitry needs to get powered from the adaptor's PSU (5v? 12v?). It seems not to get its power from the bus side (RPi side).

the previous one I had was working without any external PSU. this one too works without too, but not to boot the ssd

very odd

[HawaiianPi]

What are you using for a power supply for your Raspberry Pi 3B computer?

[blacktek]

I'm using a Vilros 2A

[HawaiianPi]

I'm using a Vilros 2A

That might be enough for a Pi3B by itself, but it's not enough with power hungry USB devices, and it may be the reason you are having trouble with USB boot (and the reason you need to power the SATA adapter).

The recommended power supply for the Pi3B is 5V/2.5A (the official RPF PSU is 5.1V/2.5A). Note that in my earlier post I was able to boot my Pi3B from an old hard drive using the official RPF PSU with no additional power for the drive or adapter.

[blacktek]

Ok I'll made this test as soon as I find a better power adaptor. In any case I think is better to power the ssd with the external psu, right? This way we reduce load on the main psu and on the board/usb ports in general.

[HawaiianPi]

Ok I'll made this test as soon as I find a better power adaptor. In any case I think is better to power the ssd with the external psu, right? This way we reduce load on the main psu and on the board/usb ports in general.

Yes, that is correct. If you don't mind the extra plugs and wires.

Your 2A power supply is enough with the powered SSD. The 2.5A PSU is recommended because the Pi3B can supply up to 1.2A form its USB ports, so almost half of the 2.5A from the PSU is just for the USB ports. With externally powered USB devices a 2A power supply should work fine for the Pi3B.

[blacktek]

Hello,
today I'm trying to boot again the raspi from the external ssd but it's refusing to work. Last time I tested that boot was working using the converter with external power, but now after flashing the new image with etcher or win32diskimager it's not working anymore. No rainbow screen, I see just the blu led blinking on the sata card adapter. With or without an sd card it doesn't boot anymore.

If I but from my original sd card the raspi sees the ssd volume and it's partition

grrrrrrrr

[blacktek]

is it possible that now the boot delay of 5s has gone away after flashing again the ssd?

the rainbow screen should appear after or before the boot_delay expired?

[blacktek]

still no luck. This morning I've booted the raspi with the sd and then mounted the boot partition of the ssd and changed the config.txt by adding boot_delay=5, but after reboot (and removing the sd card) nothing happens. Black screen.

Do you have any suggestion?

If I see the black screen (no rainbow screen) what does it mean? has he tried to make boot but failed? not tried the boot yet? not clear to me when the rainbow screen appear.

in /boot/cmdline.txt I had
dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 console=serial0,115200 console=tty1 root=/dev/mmcblk0p7 rootfstype=ext4 elevator=deadline fsck.repair=yes rootwait

I changed to
dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 console=serial0,115200 console=tty1 root=/dev/sda7 rootfstype=ext4 elevator=deadline fsck.repair=yes rootwait
but still no luck

tnx

[blacktek]

Hi,
any suggestion?

otp bits seem ok:

[email protected]:~ $ vcgencmd otp_dump | grep 66
66:01009daa

[email protected]:~ $ vcgencmd otp_dump | grep 17:
17:3020000a

really incredible that it was working some weeks ago with this ssd and this sata/usb adapter

[HawaiianPi]

... really incredible that it was working some weeks ago with this ssd and this sata/usb adapter

Has anything about the configuration changed since then?

Different power supply?

Different USB cables?

Any devices or accessories connected or removed?

still no luck. This morning I've booted the raspi with the sd and then mounted the boot partition of the ssd and changed the config.txt by adding boot_delay=5, but after reboot (and removing the sd card) nothing happens. Black screen.

Changing config.txt on a non booting device won't fix anything (the config file can't be read if the drive won't boot).

I changed to
dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 console=serial0,115200 console=tty1 root=/dev/sda7 rootfstype=ext4 elevator=deadline fsck.repair=yes rootwait
but still no luck

/dev/sda7 ?
Is this a NOOBS install?

While NOOBS can work with USB boot, it's not recommended (NOOBS doesn't update with Raspbian, so it gets outdated). Try it with a Raspbian image written directly to the USB drive with Etcher (backup important data first).

Also, use UUID or PART-UUID and not /dev/sda_ to identify devices mounted at boot time (/dev/sd identifiers can change from boot to boot).

[blacktek]

Has anything about the configuration changed since then?

Different power supply?

Different USB cables?

Any devices or accessories connected or removed?

The only big think I changed is that I cloned the img of another raspberry (with noobs) on this ssd and then it didn't boot anymore. I copied the working sd with Win32DiskImager and then copied back to ssd both with the same tool and with Etcher, but without luck.

Changing config.txt on a non booting device won't fix anything (the config file can't be read if the drive won't boot).

MM interesting point, it was not clear to me. I supposed that being able to access the file on the disk and being able to boot from the disk are 2 different things.

Is this a NOOBS install?

While NOOBS can work with USB boot, it's not recommended (NOOBS doesn't update with Raspbian, so it gets outdated). Try it with a Raspbian image written directly to the USB drive with Etcher (backup important data first).

Also, use UUID or PART-UUID and not /dev/sda_ to identify devices mounted at boot time (/dev/sd identifiers can change from boot to boot).

Yes this is a noobs install, it was the first distro I found on the dev kit and I continued using it. Now probably too many things installed and configured to restart from scratch

setting the PART-UUID was one of the test I had in mind and that I forgot :/

I tried installing a defatul raspbian image to the SSD, but still no luck

Just today I sent back to Amazon my SanDisk SSD and I would change it for a
Crucial MX500 CT250MX500SSD1(Z)
Do you think the latter could work better? could the SSD have an impact on my issue? any experience with SSD working more reliably? Afte reading many forums and discussions I had the idea that usually the biggest problem is not the SSD but that SATA controller.

I've to wait the new SSD before doing other tests, but the only one not yet done is the PART-UUID

[LTolledo]

I've had zero success on booting from an SSD/USB boot from a NOOBS installed Raspbian.

2 solutions that I've used:
a. New installation by flashing the latest raspbian stretch with desktop image, using Etcher.
b . Export out of NOOBS to "clean image".

Both worked without problems, booted using USB thumbdrives, USB HDD/SSD with Eluteng SATA to USB3.0 adaptor .

[blacktek]

could you please elaborate a bit more the option b?

b . Export out of NOOBS to "clean image".

is this the eluteng you're referring to?
https://www.amazon.it/gp/product/B06XCV1W97/

[LTolledo]

could you please elaborate a bit more the option b?

b . Export out of NOOBS to "clean image".

is this the eluteng you're referring to?
https://www.amazon.it/gp/product/B06XCV1W97/

yup this that is the "culprit"!

to export out of NOOBS (that is if you have installed so much apps/packages that you dont want to re-do all the settings again on a new install), below is the link to the procedure that I followed. Have a good read first before attempting the procedure. Your procedure should start from "Prepare Your USB Boot Device"
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/make-rasp ... -boot-usb/

As always, better backup the source microSD first before proceeding.

[blacktek]

hello,
thank you for the link. But what I meant is that as I use noobs now it takes very long to reinstall all the packages and software installed now on noobs. the file copy could work if you've the same OS on both devices, in my case you're suggesting to install raspbian on the new ssd and keeo noobs on the old sd card (so file copy is not possible)

let's see what will change with the new ssd; I wait next week, perhaps I get some black friday offer

[HawaiianPi]

I tried installing a defatul raspbian image to the SSD, but still no luck.

How was that image installed (and was it the latest image)?

After reading many forums and discussions I had the idea that usually the biggest problem is not the SSD but that SATA controller.

It's a combination of the USB adapter, the SSD (or HDD), and the firmware on both. Typically the USB adapter is the fail point, but that may not always be the case, and the small, simple boot-loader on the Pi computers may not handle all combinations correctly. I have one adapter that doesn't like my Samsung SSD, but works fine with other brand SSD, while the Samsung SSD works with a different adapter. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

That being said, I have tested a number of different SSD brands, and even a few hard drives on my ELUTENG adapter, and I have yet to find a drive it won't work with. The one you linked appears to be the same ELUTENG USB 3.0 to SATA III adapter cable I use.

[LTolledo]

Lets just make it "simple"

1. for microSD boot: Installation via NOOBS is OK

2. for USB Native Boot (thumbdrive, HDD, SSD): Raspbian Image flashed by Etcher is preferred.

I have not tried booting a USB device with a NOOBS installed Raspbian, and probably wont bother to do it.

The Eluteng SATA to USB 3.0 adaptor was originally recommended by HawaiianPi, so I think he deserves credit for that.

[blacktek]

What I did was going on https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/ and downloading "RASPBIAN STRETCH LITE". Then I deleted the old partitions on the SSD and used Etcher to copy the image. Without deleting the old partitions Etcher was complaining at 1/4 of the copy of errors during the copy.

What do you mean for "USB device with a NOOBS installed Raspbian" ?

I suppose that NOOBS is a custom version of Raspbian; a bit like Red Hat enterprise and CentOS; is it wrong?