TLDR: for 8g SD cards failing to boot, consider deleting the 4th partition and trying again
I downloaded Andrew Henderson’s Android image and had problems getting the BBB to boot. Serial console showed kernel panic since it couldn’t find a root filesystem.I discovered that deleting the 4th partition on a 8g card (note that Andrew’s image is only ~3.9g) let me boot successfully.
The procedure I followed was:
- follow instructions for Linux at http://circuitco.com/support/index.php?title=Android
- image downloaded 9/10/2013 (md5sum: ecd5dadf8284b8e3ecf5e2e49b71fd55 BBB_JB_Android_3_8_13.img)
- attempting to boot BBB with this failed due to a (both with boot button pressed/not pressed, and multiple attempts)
- removing 4th primary partition worked as follows (commands entered in bold):
$ sudo fdisk /dev/sdb
Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/sdb: 7822 MB, 7822376960 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 951 cylinders, total 15278080 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 63 144584 72261 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sdb2 144585 4048379 1951897+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb3 4048380 7952174 1951897+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb4 7952175 15647309 3847567+ c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
Command (m for help): d
Partition number (1-4): 4
Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/sdb: 7822 MB, 7822376960 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 951 cylinders, total 15278080 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 63 144584 72261 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sdb2 144585 4048379 1951897+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb3 4048380 7952174 1951897+ 83 Linux
Command (m for help): v
Remaining 7325967 unallocated 512-byte sectors
Command (m for help): w
Hopefully this is useful for someone,
Dale