Rock64 snapshot on e.MMC media fails to mount root (no microsd card involved)

Go to: [ bottom of page ] [ top of archives ] [ this month ]

From: Mark Millard <marklmi_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2024 22:43:00 UTC

I downloaded and expanded (via unxz) to get:

FreeBSD-15.0-CURRENT-arm64-aarch64-ROCK64-20240208-82bebc793658-268105.img

I then did:

# dd if=FreeBSD-15.0-CURRENT-arm64-aarch64-ROCK64-20240208-82bebc793658-268105.img of=/dev/da3 bs=1m conv=sync,fsync,fdatasync status=progress

onto e.MMC media.

The attempted boot got to the mount root stage but hang-up:

. . .
WARNING: WITNESS option enabled, expect reduced performance.
Unresolved linked clock found: hdmi_phy
Unresolved linked clock found: usb480m_phy
Trying to mount root from ufs:/dev/ufs/rootfs [rw]...
GEOM: mmcsd0: the secondary GPT header is not in the last LBA.
mmcsd0: Error indicated: 4 Failed
uhub1: 1 port with 1 removable, self powered
uhub3: 2 ports with 2 removable, self powered
uhub0: 1 port with 1 removable, self powered
uhub2: 1 port with 1 removable, self powered
random: unblocking device.

And that is all the output.

This is likely (in part?) because of using a mode requiring
tuning(/re-tuning?) that FreeBSD does not support for the
Rock64:

mmcsd0: 125GB <MMCHC DJNB4R 0.7 SN 9F43B2D6 MFG 06/2016 by 21 0x0000> at mmc0 150.0MHz/8bit/1016-block
mmcsd0boot0: 4MB partition 1 at mmcsd0
mmcsd0boot1: 4MB partition 2 at mmcsd0
mmcsd0rpmb: 4MB partition 3 at mmcsd0

(DDR50/DDR52 would be the fastest mode not requiring tuning.
SDR104 requires tuning, as do faster modes. FreeBSD's NULL
implementations of tuning that are used absent actual
support for the controller for such activity lie and report
success.)

Tuning has controller specific definitions involved for
stepping the phase and such: such is not specified by the
standard. (There is a command for sending tuning data
but not for how to have the controller explore the
alternative phases and such and then to set good value(s).)

As reported earlier, USB booting also does not complete a
root mount, despite U-Boot 2024.01 supporting USB for its
activities. So the Rock64 may be microsd card only for
FreeBSD for now.

===
Mark Millard
marklmi at yahoo.com