Pi Zero, all I see is an unknown device called BCM2708 Boot

[dubsdj]

I have a Raspberry Pi Zero that my wife gave to me as a gift .
I have plugged it into my Windows 10 PC and all I see is an unknown device called BCM2708 Boot .. What should I do next ? I have searched google but cannot seem to find an answer thanks.

[MarkyV]

You will need a mini HDMI cable-> screen, an SD card with and OS on it and probably a keyboard/mouse combination to plug into the micro USB port and of course some power (micro USB supplying 5V 1Amp+)

http://ebookion.com/hardware/753-gettin ... -zero.html
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/raspberr ... rter-guide
https://cdn-learn.adafruit.com/download ... i-zero.pdf

Hope that helps

Mark

[wildfire]

What should I do next ? I have searched google but cannot seem to find an answer thanks.

The Pi Zero as all Pi's is a computer by itself...

What do you want to do next?

EDIT: There is plenty of information regarding installing an OS to your Pi, you'll need a micro SD card (2GB min for lite, 8GB for basic usage 32GB+ for a good experience).

[wayne.dolesman]

I have a Raspberry Pi Zero that my wife gave to me as a gift .
I have plugged it into my Windows 10 PC and all I see is an unknown device called BCM2708 Boot .. What should I do next ? I have searched google but cannot seem to find an answer thanks.

BCM2708 Boot is the message the pi gives when it is trying to boot via USB (not a usb disk but usb off your pc). This setup is a little more advanced than a SD card with a suitable image on it. I suggest a class 10 card for performance reasons although slower (cheaper) are known to work. You do not need an HDMI cable if you do not want one, you can set up the Pi0 headless and have it bring up networking via usb and either ssh or vnc into it. This is sometimes easier than trying to mess around with a USB OTG cable, swapping keybord/mouse over as well as your monitor. This is especially true if all you have is a laptop.

For the curious to usb boot you will have to build an initial ram disk, offer that up (either in a custom kernel or separate), then initialize networking via USB and nfs mount the filesystem.

[fruitoftheloom]

I have a Raspberry Pi Zero that my wife gave to me as a gift .
I have plugged it into my Windows 10 PC and all I see is an unknown device called BCM2708 Boot .. What should I do next ? I have searched google but cannot seem to find an answer thanks.

That is quite normal and proves your RPi Zero is functioning.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation have a comprehensive web site:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/help

[wildfire]

BCM2708 Boot is the message the pi gives when it is trying to boot via USB (not a usb disk but usb off your pc). This setup is a little more advanced than a SD card with a suitable image on it.

Mis information, please ignore.

[wayne.dolesman]

BCM2708 Boot is the message the pi gives when it is trying to boot via USB (not a usb disk but usb off your pc). This setup is a little more advanced than a SD card with a suitable image on it.

Mis information, please ignore.

I read your statement as "I am unaware of this and kindly request that you educate me further" as such I shall.

First I point to this tweet

@TeamRaspi
Today I got the Raspberry Pi model A booting with no sdcard! It's booting its code from USB (from a model B!)

Next I point to the github repository that gives you the code to do exactly this (note the vendor and product IDs are the same as what is offered when you see BCM2708 (which goes to 2710 after you toss it some files).

You can learn more through the github resource, in fact you can even download the code and compile it and test drive it yourself. I have, it even works on the broken Pi0's that do the BCM2708 thing but will not do USB peripheral mode if booted off an SD card.

[wildfire]

OK, for the benefit of the community, please give step by step instructions how to boot a Zero (or any Pi (except the 3b) for that matter) without a SD Card?

[DougieLawson]

OK, for the benefit of the community, please give step by step instructions how to boot a Zero (or any Pi (except the 3b) for that matter) without a SD Card?

Don't hold your breath waiting. Wayne, the deployer of mis-information, doesn't have a good record of posting anything that might actually work on this forum.

[gregeric]

Wayne is correct, it wasn't inaccurate: that's the message the bcm2835 gives during the first stage of its USB slave boot. Indeed it can boot linux that way, no SD card at all, but requiring a computer on the other end of the cable, not mass storage. But that's not what the OP is after here I suspect...

[wildfire]

Don't hold your breath waiting. Wayne, the deployer of mis-information, doesn't have a good record of posting anything that might actually work on this forum.

I Wasn't

[jamesh]

Looks like people need to read this

https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentati ... bootmodes/

https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentati ... des/msd.md

[gregeric]

The Device Boot section on that first link is an empty holding page, but there's more info on device/slave boot at the end of https://github.com/raspberrypi/usbboot and gsh mentions it here too: viewtopic.php?f=98&t=171975&p=1101183&h ... t#p1101595

Not for the want of trying, I cannot find right now the page with instructions on how to make the buildroot image & squirt it over with rpiboot.

[dubsdj]

Thanks everyone. So I need a Micro SD card. I'm using an android charger for the usb connection to the device. I was thinking of just using it via SSH putty.

so to get started I would just need micro SD card right? How would I connect to it via ssh if there is no Ethernet adapter?

thanks again

[fruitoftheloom]

Thanks everyone. So I need a Micro SD card. I'm using an android charger for the usb connection to the device. I was thinking of just using it via SSH putty.

so to get started I would just need micro SD card right? How would I connect to it via ssh if there is no Ethernet adapter?

thanks again

Gadget Mode: http://blog.gbaman.info/?p=791

[321]

If you know what you want to do, that would be a starting point.

If you want to run raspbian (desktop) on your pizero just like a "normal" computer to get a feel for it before embarking on other projects, then besides the HDMI info given already on how to connect to your display, and microsd card, you'll need to download and copy a copy of raspbian onto the microsd card, then as you have two micro USB ports on the pizero, one for power and one for usb devices, you'll need a usb cable with a micro usb connector at one end to plug into the pizero and a normal usb connector at the other end to plug into a usb hub. Then you can plug a usb keyboard and usb mouse into the hub to be able to control it, including enabling SSH if you want to control the pizero remotely.

If you want to control the pizero remotely, you'll also need a usb ethernet adaptor 10/100 to plug into the usb hub or a usb wifi adaptor to plug into the usb adaptor, it depends on how your existing network is setup and how you want to connect to it ultimately.

That is one way to get you started with the desktop. I'm sure other instructions/guides can be found searching this forum and elsewhere online, like how to mount the sdcard and change some settings to enable ssh before you plug the microsd card into your pizero in order to ssh onto it, but its hard knowing what others know so I'm just suggesting what appears to be a common course of action.

Not to be interpreted as a snarky comment either.

[wayne.dolesman]

Wayne is correct, it wasn't inaccurate: that's the message the bcm2835 gives during the first stage of its USB slave boot. Indeed it can boot linux that way, no SD card at all, but requiring a computer on the other end of the cable, not mass storage. But that's not what the OP is after here I suspect...

I would have thought that posting the github repo to the actual source would have confirmed that but it seems that there are a couple people now still doubting.


edit: I realize the previously below section (now gone for clarity) may have seemed like it was misdirected at gregric but the below was not really to him just to dissenters in the thread who didnt want to go to the github repo which both gregric and I posted.

gregric thanks for the forum post that talks about this and gives the same instructions the github repo contains.

[wayne.dolesman]

OK, for the benefit of the community, please give step by step instructions how to boot a Zero (or any Pi (except the 3b) for that matter) without a SD Card?

Don't hold your breath waiting. Wayne, the deployer of mis-information, doesn't have a good record of posting anything that might actually work on this forum.

Actually I did before this post. Since you are making it a habit of going to every one of my posts and telling people I dont know what I am talking about, and here it is clearly proved I do and you dont (I even gave code to do exactly this yet you doubt) I am just gonna put you on ignore.

Seriously stalking isnt cool. Defaming people because you dont know things isnt cool. Trying to start fights on multiple threads isnt cool. So ignoring you is the only way I can have a more cool experience on these forums.

[dubsdj]

so I did write the OS to the sd card using Win32DiskImage and edited the config files and commandline files and plugged it in. The green light flickers for a bout 90 seconds and then stays green. However in the device manager I do not see any devices under OTHER except the BCMBoot .. so I cannot ssh to it. Not sure what I have done wrong here. Bonjour service is running..

[PiGraham]

so I did write the OS to the sd card using Win32DiskImage and edited the config files and commandline files and plugged it in. The green light flickers for a bout 90 seconds and then stays green. However in the device manager I do not see any devices under OTHER except the BCMBoot .. so I cannot ssh to it. Not sure what I have done wrong here. Bonjour service is running..

That could mean the Pi has booted but there is a problem with the gadget mode config. If you had a monitor attached you would probably see a desktop.

Connect a screen, keyboard and mouse and try it out stand-alone. That will at least shows it's working.
You can check your config files on the Pi, look at the logs etc. Trying to do it all from a PC could be limiting.

You can connect to command line over serial port. If you have a LVTTL USB serial cable and attach it to the UART Tx Rx pins on the GPIO header you can access the command line just like with SSH.

[dubsdj]

thanks I don't have a mini hdmi cable so was hoping to ssh onto it but don't see RDNIS network adapter which the documentation says should appear in device manager.

[PiGraham]

thanks I don't have a mini hdmi cable so was hoping to ssh onto it but don't see RDNIS network adapter which the documentation says should appear in device manager.

Presumably there is a config problem. It might be easier to track that down from inside the Pi than from outside on Windows. You need to know if the Pi is actually booting OK.

[dubsdj]

I guess so. Problem is I tried to edit the config file and the SD Card says write protected now even though the switch is not in the lock position.

[wayne.dolesman]

The Device Boot section on that first link is an empty holding page, but there's more info on device/slave boot at the end of https://github.com/raspberrypi/usbboot and gsh mentions it here too: viewtopic.php?f=98&t=171975&p=1101183&h ... t#p1101595

Not for the want of trying, I cannot find right now the page with instructions on how to make the buildroot image & squirt it over with rpiboot.

it needs to be in your "fat32" directory that you do I copied everything through these commands.

Code: Select all

sudo kpartx -a jessie.img
sudo mount /dev/mapper/loop0p1 /mnt
cp -rp /mnt jessie # the p option doesnt matter much unless you have an odd umask set
sudo umount /mnt

I put it in verbose mode so I can see what its doing, which files it wants, etc.

Code: Select all

sudo ./rpiboot -v -d jessie

You have to edit config.txt to tell it to use the initial ram disk, if that is done it will request and pull it. That is how I found out that if its uncompressed it will abort. The Pi has plenty of ram but it cant pull a 20M file through the loader and dies before it finishes. The problem with this method is that you have to tell it where to load the initrd by memory address. This line is different from most, no = and 2 arguments eg "initramfs initrd.img.gz 0x00a00000"


To make a ramdisk you can apt-get install initramfs-tools on a working pi or you can go into an emulated environment and make one there.

If you are lazy you may want to use https://github.com/raspberrypi/target_fs as a way of making a single kernel with a ram disk built in. Just replace the kernel in your "fat 32 partition" that you use with rpiboot. That actually makes things easier but is more complex if you want to constantly change your initrd.

Of course it means you have to have a cross-compile build environment, build the kernel, etc. This is why in my initial post I said it was more complex and recommended the SD card option to the OP

[321]

Another option is to repeat the image write and boot up with the Bonjour service switched off on the Win10 machine.
Avahi which runs on the pi, is almost identical to Bonjour, its an automated network configuration/discovery program and some media sources suggest Win10 is seriously insecure. With this in mind, in worse case scenerio, it might explain why a microsd card with no read only switch (although your SD adaptor which your microsd card might go into and be set) could have had the controller altered to say its now read only.

Some idea of what could be done can be read here. http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?page_id=3592

Just because a security researcher/white hat hacker hasnt created a proof of concept to confirm an exploit, doesnt mean black hat hackers have not found an exploit and are using it for their own undisclosed purposes.