odroid HC4 not autobooting

[odroidforumuser]

I bought an odroid HC4, (I have no prior experience with anything odroid). I followed the guide over at: https://wiki.odroid.com/odroid-hc4/gett ... tion_guide, to put ubuntu on an sd card. I then inserted the sd card, connected power and it didn't boot (I think, this was a few weeks ago, and I didn't have a display connected). I then must have read somewhere to hold down the button when connecting power, which works, I am able to boot into ubuntu like that, but obviously that isn't ideal for a nas. I found this forum post about a similar issue: viewtopic.php?t=44026. It talks about petitboot, which is apparently the bootloader, and apparently it has a menu, which is supposed to show up when connecting power without pressing the button. This doesn't happen in my case, it just doesn't give any display out when I connect it to power without the button pressed. Looking online I found this: https://wiki.odroid.com/getting_started ... or_upgrade which, I guess I can try to recover petitboot. This guide tells me to download the "Recovery image". That text isn't a link, it is just bold, so I guess I gotta look for a recovery image for petitboot. I found this thing: https://wiki.odroid.com/odroid-n2/os_im ... =petitboot but that is for the odroid-n2, no page like that for the hc4, would the n2 image work for that?

So ye, kinda lost here.... How do I get my HC4 to boot without pressing the button

[tomerr]

do you have a blue led blinking on the HC4 when you turn it on?
if not, you can recover petitboot by flashing this image http://ppa.linuxfactory.or.kr/images/pe ... 005.img.xz to sd card
and booting while pressing the button (the flashed SD card with the recovery image is inserted in the HC4). this would flash petitboot . do this with a display connected

[odroidforumuser]

When I turn it on, the blue led is permanently on (not blinking). (it is blinking when I boot it into ubuntu). I tried your image (flashed through balenaEtcher onto a 2gb sd card), put it into the HC4, and connected power with the sdcard inserted and the button held down, I got a permanently on blue led again, and no display out, it is basically acting the same as when there is no sd card (The display works in ubuntu).

[tomerr]

i think your issue is somehow related to your display and Petitboot , as when you hold the button while turning on power, you're bypassing the bootloader (which loads Petitboot).
i would try a different display with a different HDMI cable.
there's also the option of removing Petitboot completely, but if I remember correctly, in order to do so you need to run commands in Petitboot shell.

EDIT:
"the BLUE LED is lit when the boot loader is started and start to blink when the OS is started."
take out the SD card , and power on the HC4 . what happens with the blue led? do you see Petitboot on screen?

also, have a look at this thread viewtopic.php?f=207&t=40906&p=352226#p352226

[tobetter]

When I turn it on, the blue led is permanently on (not blinking). (it is blinking when I boot it into ubuntu). I tried your image (flashed through balenaEtcher onto a 2gb sd card), put it into the HC4, and connected power with the sdcard inserted and the button held down, I got a permanently on blue led again, and no display out, it is basically acting the same as when there is no sd card (The display works in ubuntu).

Does your 2GB SD card boots with any other OS when you hold the button down at bottom?
When the blue LED lits bit not start to blink does mean your HC4 stuck at boot loader, which means it failed to load/start Linux kernel and no display out before Linux kernel start.

[odroidforumuser]

Today I tried with a different sd card, and a different display+hdmi cable

• I flashed the sd card with the petitboot recovery image, I inserted that sd card in the device, connected a display, and connected power.

• I got a display out that was immediately started updating/installing petitboot, so I let that finish.

• I then restarted the device, and petitboot came up,

I then tried doing that same thing on my old display+hdmi cable combo, and I got no display out in petitboot, so I am guessing the problem was the display+cable I was using (that display works once in ubuntu though), though I guess there is a possibility both petitboot and the display+cable combo were borked since the led was not blinking, guess I'll never know now.

I also noticed that autobooting from petitboot into ubuntu only gives me a blinking cursor, and never actually drops me in a tty, which I guess is why I thought it wasn't autobooting. Not sure why autobooting through petitboot does, but now that I had access to the petitboot terminal, I decided to just use the solution here: viewtopic.php?t=44026, and properly erase petitboot, since I don't need any of the petitboot features. After doing that, everything just properly works and autostarts, so I am happy now.

[tomerr]

i think i know what the bottom cause for all of this -
you followed the official (and not very updated) C4/HC4 getting started guide, which provides link for Ubuntu and Android images for the HC4 ,
BUT i suspect that "getting started" guide is more suitable for the C4.
The better way for getting the HC4 to perform as a NAS device , is to follow this guide https://wiki.odroid.com/odroid-hc4/soft ... odroid-hc4
which explains how to install OS using Petitboot netinstall (netboot) , which offer the latest Linux images for the HC4.

may I ask what NAS software are you using on your Ubuntu installation and which Ubuntu flavor did you burn to that SD card (Mate / minimal ..)?

[hanscees]

I have an odroid hc4 too a week now.
I have dietpi now working.

I got rid of petitboot by doing

`https://www.armbian.com/odroid-hc4/
From the Petitboot menu, go for “Exit to shell” and these commands to remove the Petitboot:

# flash_eraseall /dev/mtd0
# flash_eraseall /dev/mtd1
# flash_eraseall /dev/mtd2
# flash_eraseall /dev/mtd3
`

and after that it boots from a sd card fine.

Note that my hc4 did and does show output on an external hdmi monitor I plug in.
So if a monitor shows nothing (stays really black and shows no input) I think the hc4 is broken.
If the monitor does showq something, but theres no booting just insert an sd card with the right OS of course