Dietpi on Odroid n2+ and no boot with USB disk attached

Hi,

I use from 1 year dietpi (now with 8.22.3 version) on my Odroid n2+ (unattended server) without any problem: until now I only used eMMC card (32GB) but recently I buyed a DAS module (Sabrent DS-SC5B) and I attached it to Odroid via USB 3.0 (actually with only 1 SATA disk).

I mounted this disk with dietpi-drive_manager and works perfectly: but when I reboot (with USB cable attached to Odroid) Dietpi doesn’t boot.

If I disconnect USB cable, dietpi boot as usual.

Can you help me?

Thanks

I reply to myself.

I connected a monitor and keyboard to ODroid N2+ to see what happened during the boot.

If I boot with USB drive connected, I don’t see anything on the monitor, total black screen: in this state, if I disconnect USB cable (without reboot) N2+ starts normally (with Dietpi from eMMC).

Anyone have any idea?

Thanks

So it even doesn’t try to boot until it’s disconncted sounds like a hardware issue to me? Or a power issue. But the Sabrent DS-SC5B has it’s own power brick. :thinking:
Do you use a metal case for the N2 by any chance?

Yes, Sabrent unit has power brick and I dont’use any case for N2+: but if was a power issue, why only during boot?

If I connect Sabrent unit after boot, I can mount all my 5 HDs from Odroid N2+.

I tried also to change N2+ switch boot (from MMC to SPI) and N2+ boots (I see petiboot menu): also I tried to boot with a USB stick connected to USB port and also in this case N2+ boots normally.

I use for N2+ 12V/4A power adaptor and I really don’t understand why this problem is happening.

Usually the boot process needs there most power, when everything is starting up, a lot of reads and writes taking place, the network gets in initialized and so on. Usually this is the part where poor power connection fails the most.
But the thing is, it would even try to boot but even this does not happen with something to USB attached which makes me think that a plugged in USB device is shortening something on the board? But on the other hand you can boot from an USB Stick, which suggests the sabrent is the main culprit and not the USB port.
Can you try to connect another HDD via USB an observer what happens? Or try another cable with the sabrent ?

Thanks Jappe for your explanation.

I am using this USB-C UBS-A cable (2m length, sorry this page is from Italian Amazon):

because Sabrent USB-C USB-A cable is too short for my needs.

Maybe to test I can move Sabrent unit closer Odroid N2+ to use Sabrent cable (it’s a complicated move but I’ll try).

At this moment I haven’t any other USB disk but next week I will try with some Sata SSD (in a Sata-USB case).

I will post my results.

Thanks again

I apologize for necro’ing this old post, but @Alex55 , were you able to resolve this case?

Just some background, I’m experiencing the same issue with an ODroid N2 (non + model), and I’m having the same issue.

  • Boot: eMMC
  • Additional Drives: 4 USB 3.0 SATA drives

When I restart with the USB drives connected, it fails to boot up properly. I attached the HDMI cable, and noticed it was bootlooping in a previous attempt.

If I remove all of the USB drives, I can boot up fine from the eMMC.

I understand that power draw for the USB drives can be a problem, but I did not encounter this on an older setup for this device. (I accidentally corrupted my previous DietPi install on this N2 which was probably running for around 2+ years after a failed kernel installation due to a lack of space on the /boot partition.) If I plug in the drives shortly after the N2 responds to pings and I’m able to SSH, there are no problems whatsoever.

I’ve been trying to wrap my head around this for a few hours, and from research I’m wondering if this is related to the bootloader attempting to prioritize the boot drive to the attached USB drives…

If there is any more information I can provide, please let me know. If you would prefer a new thread, I can proceed with this, also.

It has been reported and solved/worked around already: Odroid N2 Plus: Boot loop when attached USB storage NOT ready · Issue #7168 · MichaIng/DietPi · GitHub
Armbian changed the default boot oder so that USB drives are checked first. However, in some cases, scanning the USB drives first crashes the bootloader, resulting in reboot and boot loop. We removed the patch which changes the boot order, so that again eMMC and SD card are checked first. The new bootloader package has been pushed to our APT server already:

apt update
apt upgrade
/boot/dietpi/func/dietpi-set_hardware flash-u-boot-mmc

Would be actually nice to have USB as first boot priority, since it makes testing different images easier, when you have another one on an eMMC module: Unplugging and plugging an eMMC module all the time surely wears the slot over time, more than a USB slot, I guess. At least I am a little afraid of this on my N2+. But if this breaks booting from eMMC and SD card in some cases, as long as the reason for that has not been found, we needed to revert the boot order.

Cheers Micha, thanks for reviewing this on here and on #7173. Sorry for the double-post! Will continue working with you on Github :slight_smile:

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