Booting from a SSD
Mike Morris (1852) 89 posts |
Can anyone help me out with a simple step-by-step guide how to boot my Pandaboard ES from a SSD please? I’ve tried setting up a bootable SSD using !SystemDisc but that hasn’t worked too well – the Panda won’t boot up without the SD card being present and then the machine always hangs upon shutdown. I’ve tried searching for a definitive guide to setting up a SSD for RISC OS 5 but haven’t been able to find one. Any help would be much appreciated! |
Steffen Huber (91) 1945 posts |
SSD on Panda is accessed via USB and therefore SCSI. SD card is accessed via SDFS, which is the default boot configuration filesystem. So you need to change the default filesystem and the boot drive on that filesystem: configure boot or maybe drive 0, depending on the USB adaptor presenting either a “fixed disc” to USB or a “removable disc” to USB. You might also need to do a opt 4 2 when the SSD is your “current disc” to set the boot flag. Note that if you have multiple SCSI disc devices accessible via USB, I think there is no enumeration order guarantee, so during startup your drive number might change! |
Raik (463) 2026 posts |
Will you boot without a SD card? |
Tristan M. (2946) 1036 posts |
Would the process that Steffen suggested also work on the RPi3? I never could quite work out how to change the RO configuration to get it to boot properly from a USB HDD. |
RISCOSBits (3000) 127 posts |
It will. But you’ll still need the SD card for the ROM and Firmware. The Pi3 can be set to work exclusively from USB, but it’s irreversible, so if your hard drive goes pear-shaped, it’ll be a struggle to get it going again. |
Rick Murray (539) 13402 posts |
On my Beagle xM, I start up from µSD and using commands similar to those given by Steffen, have RISC OS booting from a USB key. I don’t think the OMAP is smart enough to not from USB. But even if it was, I wouldn’t want it. A µSD card is small and forgettable, and can hold the OS (and be changeable without messing around with anything else). This is useful if you periodically update to the nightlies, or if you bake your own ROM images. Something gone wrong? Just fiddle the µSD to revert. Can be done easily enough with a PC, or these days a phone/tablet with OTG. In other words, don’t worry about the µSD for the firmware. Call it peace of mind. ;-) |
Tristan M. (2946) 1036 posts |
You mean, the large ROM which is easily re-flashable and supports partial flashes? :)
Eh? I flipped the OTP setting as soon as it was made public. My Pi3 boots from SD fine still. AFAIK it added USB boot to the sequence, not replaced SD boot. While it is stated elsewhere, this document is more interesting. It even has boot modes I didn’t know about. https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/bootmodes/bootflow.md |
Mike Morris (1852) 89 posts |
Steffan and Raik: many thanks for your advice. I think I was missing the ‘Opt 4 2’. Just to mention in case it’s of any use to someone else, I had to use ‘drive 4’ at the CLI rather than ‘configure drive 4’ but then it worked fine. However, I still have problems with the machine stiffing after doing a Shift-Control-F12, I get hour glass activity for about 12 seconds then it freezes, requiring a switch off at the mains. Oddly, though, there’s no problem shutting down by clicking on ‘Shutdown’ on the switcher icon. Raik: how do I save the CMOS? Raik & RISCOSBits: just to check I fully understand you, you’re saying that I will always need the SD card to get the machine booted? I can’t transfer absolutely everything to the SSD? |
Raik (463) 2026 posts |
Open !Configure e.g. doubeklick !Boot on your main drive and use the menu (middle mousebutton) to save the CMOS.
You can transfer !Boot and all the other RISC OS stuff to the SSD. All die !Loader-Files you should take to the FAT-Partition on your SD card. |
Mike Morris (1852) 89 posts |
Thanks Raik. |
Tristan M. (2946) 1036 posts |
This is a useful thread. Out of curiosity I tried this on my Orange Pi PC. I have to manually load the ROM via network, but it can read the USB drive which has a FileCore FS on it with a fairly recent HardDisc4 dumped to it. It doesn’t seem to have “configure drive n”. The rest seems to work okay. I saved the CMOS, power cycled (how on earth can I reboot from the SVC prompt?), did the dance and let it boot. Besides Toolbox being missing for some reason it actually looked at the USB drive and did it’s best to set up everything. |
Chris Mahoney (1684) 2100 posts |
Try “Configure SCSIFSDrive n” instead. |
John Sandgrounder (1650) 574 posts |
The setting is irreversible, in that it can not be undone. But if the Pi3 finds a valid SDcard during the hardware boot, it will still boot from it. |