BBB doesn't boot with micro sd card

My Beagle Bone Black doesn’t boot if an empty micro sd card is inserted. If I insert the card while the system is running, the card isn’t recognized.
Any ideas? Am I missing something?

uname -a says:
Linux beaglebone 3.8.13 #1 SMP Wed Jun 5 11:21:00 CEST 2013 armv7l GNU/Linux

Regards,
Bernd

… and it also doesn’t boot at all if the sd card carries a freshly installed Arch Linux. Could it be a hardware problem?

Bernd

Maybe. Could be an improperly created SD card. I suggest you go to the support Wiki and follow the instructions there to make sure there is no HW issue. Use the Angstrom distribution.

Gerald

In the past, I’ve had to have a specially formatted uEnv.txt file in the root of the first partition of my flash card. I have it listed, along with my current parition structure in the third code block in the post I just wrote at http://wimsworld.wordpress.com/2013/09/23/beagleboneblack-5-8ghz-wifi-reliability/

The contents of my uEnv.txt file are:

mmcdev=1
bootpart=1:2
mmcroot=/dev/mmcblk1p2
optargs=quiet capemgr.disable_partno=BB-BONELT-HDMI,BB-BONELT-HDMIN

Though you would likely want to change the last line so that it does not have the capemgr.disable command.

Thanks, but my problem appears to be on a different level. As I said, the BBB _always_ refuses to boot if the sd card is inserted, irrespective of the card's content, and irrespective of the boot button being held down or not.
Also, if the card is inserted when the system is running, the system doesn't see it.
The sd card itself is OK, it works properly in my notebook.

I'm quite frustrated and already considering to send the BBB back.

Bernd

So grab a usb-serial converter and see where it actually stops
booting. In the end it'll probably something very simple you just
missed...

Regards,

You must add a uENV.txt file to the SD card as was previously indicated to make sure the card boots from the eMMC correctly. This is the way the SW is written.

Gerald