Troubles starting bare-metal program from external SD card

GoogleGroups
1

Hi,

I have some big troubles deploying the LED-blink-example from Starterware on an external Micro-SD card. That’s what I have done:

  • format the card using the HP Disk utility
  • place MLO file on it
  • place file “app” (which contains the compiled blink-example) on the card
  • optionally place file “u-boot.img” (which contains the same) on the card

On start up three LEDs on the board are lit, serial interface tells me something about “invalid partition 2” and nothing happens.

For MLO and app I tried:

  • self compiled binaries (including some changes I found in TI-forum necessary for BBB) prepared with the TI-image-tool
  • the MLO and u-boot.img file from internal SD-card

Result is always the same.

Then I found information in BBB-Wiki to delete/rename the MLO file on internal SD-card. Now the three LEDs are no longer lit, serial debug console prints nothing more than “CCCCCC” - and my program still does not work.

Any idea what I’m doing wrong?

Thanks!

2

To boot from SD, you need to hold the button down or remove MLO. The CCCC means that your SD card is not bootable. I would restore the factory image to the eMMC. Then use the boot button to force the SD card as the boot source, at least until you have it working correctly.

As to Starterware, I can’t help you there.

Gerald

3

As Gerald I am not familiar with starterware, but last I heard starterware was for the beaglebone white, not the beaglebone black.

Second thing I noticed is that you’re using uboot but have no uEnv.txt file ? Maybe starterware does something different I am not sure, but the examples I’ve seen for loading executable s through uboot require a uEnv.txt file and then you need the proper “settings” within this file. Mainly this is just to tell uboot to come up, and run the executable(s) of choice.

4

That is my understanding as well. In fact, if you run it on the Black using the white code, the PMIC is not set correctly, Could damage the board.

5

Oops. So can we use the code for Black in White board? Including the MLO,
uboot, firmware, kernel, etc...

6

The difference black/white is not a problem, I already modfied the
related code in Starterware (there is a thread in TIs forum that
describes what has to be done in order to make Starterware usable on
BBB).