[BPI-R3 Mini] How to unbricked NAND and EMMC

[frank-w]

You must not open putty on same com port…it blocks the serial port like minicom in linux…only 1 application can access the serial device. And when the app is running it waits for device to start…then it sends the 2 files and closes…then you can start your putty on same com-port and you should be in uboot with usb support

I have not tried on windows yet.

[Ufuk_Delibas]

I try on Linux and I got this.

[frank-w]

Yes it waits for the device…now you have to power on the board and should see additional output

[Ufuk_Delibas]

I got an error.

[frank-w]

the app says the payload is not found…i see you started the application with full path (so not changing the current work dir)…where have you the files? ideally they should be in same dir as the mtk_uartboot binary, then change to this dir and then run with ./mtk_uartboot

[Ufuk_Delibas]

It work.

Now I have to install Openwrt on Nand first and then on Emmc ?

[frank-w]

Commit in openwrt says emmc first,then nand

[BPi-R3-Mini] How to create .iso image out of binaries

Perhaps I was still wrong in forming the topic and question. After studying various topics, I found a way to flash a snapshot into emmc memory. All stages of eMMC firmware were completed without problems. “Installation instructions for eMMC” After the firmware I switched to eMMC memory, but only interface 192.168.1.1 was available to me. Next, I turned off the R3 mini and switched to NAND memory, but hw still did not boot from nand. fan spin LED indications ping, ssh, web - not available. No…

[Ufuk_Delibas]

Do I have to follow those steps because I have the usb fonction now ?

[BPI-R3 Mini] Boot from NAND fails

so just an update, i’ve successfully loaded sysupgrade from USB, here is what i’ve done boot into Uboot console an run these commands: Start USB subsystem: usb start List files on the USB stick (it should be formatted in FAT32), optional step if you know the name of the file to load: fatls usb 0:1 Load sysupgrade in RAM and then write into eMMC: fatload usb 0:1 $loadaddr openwrt-mediatek-filogic-bananapi_bpi-r3-mini-squashfs-sysupgrade.itb Finally write it on eMMC: run emmc_write_producti…

[frank-w]

i guess this guide is similar…have not tried flashing openwrt yet, so i cannot report from own experience

[Ufuk_Delibas]

Ok it didn’t work.

And my bootmenu lokk like this.

What do you suggest ?

[frank-w]

The files i have provided do not have the openwrt specific vars like emmc_write_production

The link in the posting i linked shows manual install in linux

dd if=/tmp/openwrt-*-bananapi_bpi-r3-mini-emmc-preloader.bin of=/dev/mmcblk0boot0
dd if=/tmp/openwrt-*-bananapi_bpi-r3-mini-emmc-bl31-uboot.fip of=/dev/mmcblk0p3
dd if=/tmp/openwrt-*-bananapi_bpi-r3-mini-initramfs-recovery.itb of=/dev/mmcblk0p4
dd if=/tmp/openwrt-*-bananapi_bpi-r3-mini-squashfs-sysupgrade.itb of=/dev/mmcblk0p5

As you are “only” in uboot you have to convert it to uboot commands

So printing the correct filenames

ls usb 0:1
load usb 0:1 $loadaddr filename
mmc write ...

the problem is that mmc write needs offsets and cannot write to partitions…

one option would be starting a linux-kernel with initrd and doing the linux-steps i linked, or chainloading a openwrt u-boot (load …$uaddr u-boot.bin;go $uaddr) to do the steps manually.

https://git.openwrt.org/?p=openwrt/openwrt.git;a=blob;f=package/boot/uboot-mediatek/patches/442-add-bpi-r3-mini.patch;h=5409f7fa0de71ed406727c1d53cc5a1e733afdeb;hb=HEAD#l533

i have an initrd here:

rootfs.cpio.zst

you can set it in my uboot with “setenv initrd rootfs.cpio.zst” and running newboot

so when all files on usb basicly

• run useusb
• setenv initrd rootfs.cpio.zst
• setenv fit bpi-r3.itb # needs to be a kernel with config for r3mini (you can use a recent bpi-r3.itb from my kernel-repo)
• run newboot

[Ufuk_Delibas]

I get an error.

[frank-w]

what is the output of

printenv bootconf

?

It should show name of this config

frank-w/BPI-Router-Linux/blob/6.6-main/bpi-r3.its#L95

If not please set it like this (maybe with # before)

Amd you have downloaded bpi-r3.itb from 6.6-main release? Previous images have no r3mini support.

But it is possible that bootconf is overwritten by setbootconf as r3 has a detection of devices…So could you do

printenv setbootconf

And if there is the detection (checkmmc,checkspi) just change it to fixed bootconf

setenv setbootconf 'setenv bootconf "#conf-emmc-mini"'

[Ufuk_Delibas]

Ok it works.

Do I have to put root as login and follow the link in the posting in a Linux terminal or UART console ?

[frank-w]

Yes simply use username root…no pw in initrd

[Ufuk_Delibas]

Ok and do I have to follow those steps on a Linux terminal ?

dd if=/tmp/openwrt-*-bananapi_bpi-r3-mini-emmc-preloader.bin of=/dev/mmcblk0boot0
dd if=/tmp/openwrt-*-bananapi_bpi-r3-mini-emmc-bl31-uboot.fip of=/dev/mmcblk0p3
dd if=/tmp/openwrt-*-bananapi_bpi-r3-mini-initramfs-recovery.itb of=/dev/mmcblk0p4
dd if=/tmp/openwrt-*-bananapi_bpi-r3-mini-squashfs-sysupgrade.itb of=/dev/mmcblk0p5

[frank-w]

Yes,it is possible you have to disable boot0 readonly mode first

[Ufuk_Delibas]

I think I did it. I just follow your guide for the BPI R3.

[BPI-R3 Mini] Boot from NAND fails

good that you have now uboot loaded with usb support (which looks like mine)… i do not know the exact files from openwrt/immortalwrt, and if they use a specific way…imho openwrt stores fip in ubifs (i have not done anything with it yet). i can only guess that the first file (squashfs-sysupgrade) is the kernel with initrd, bl31-uboot.fip is similar to my fip and emmc-preloader is the bl2 which have to be on boot0 block basic way is described here https://www.fw-web.de/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=en:b…

[Ufuk_Delibas]

Now its asking me to do tftp for the recovery file but it dosn’t work.

[frank-w]

I cannot help much with openwrt specific stuff,but it looks it loads something from mmc first without error…only has error with the leds (missing config option in uboot?). You can try adding the uboot option to uboot (but i do not know how).