Stuck on Staring kernel

Troubleshooting
1

Hello everyone.

Need some help with restoring system after my several mistakes.

I have headless RockPi 4b with soldered SPI Flash and m2 extension board.

So, I was using it with DietPi for almost 5 years firstly on SD card and moved to 256 Gb NVME after SD died (~ 1 year after start). After moving to 256 Gb NVME bootloader was flashed to SPI, so no SD card used.

Some time ago I realized that 256 Gb not enough and I need to move to 1Tb.

Several days ago I started “migration” to 1 Tb NVME:

  1. On live DietPi using dd command and external SSD case I cloned currently used NVME to the bigger one (first mistake because the smaller one still was mounted/used by system)

  2. After NVME was cloned system despite my mistake started OK, but I was needed for some repartitioning (need more space!). So I tried to use systemctl enable dietpi-fs_partition_resize.service

  3. After reboot and some time ago system still was without link on my router and no LED flashes on board/NVME and because it was headless I thought that something went wrong and powered it off (second mistake).

  4. HDMI not working for some reasons so I connected board with UART and saw some u-boot console, tried to restore u-boot partition on SPI, but failed and completely cleaned it (third mistake)

  5. With USB-OTG and Maskmode i think that I restored u-boot on SPI Flash (I think so because UART shows some tries to find bootable system even with no SD/NVME installed) – used loader *.bin and u-boot image from here.

  6. When connected 256 Gb NVME system tried to start, on kernel boot I saw message like ‘Started resize partitions’ (I thought “How is this possible, I enabled dietpi-fs_partition_resize.service on different NVME!?”) and it stucks for hour – no LED board/NVME blinks and no new data on UART, so I powered it off (fourth mistake).

  7. After that issue, loading with 256Gb NVME stops at u-boot after CRC error of RAMDisk Image

  8. When connecting 1Tb NVME loading stucks on “Starting kernel ...”.

    UART Output

    DDR Version 1.20 20190314
    In
    channel 0
    CS = 0
    MR0=0xB8
    MR4=0x1
    MR5=0xFF
    MR8=0x8
    MR12=0x72
    MR14=0x72
    MR18=0x0
    MR19=0x0
    MR24=0x8
    MR25=0xFF
    CS = 1
    MR0=0x38
    MR4=0x1
    MR5=0xFF
    MR8=0x8
    MR12=0x72
    MR14=0x72
    MR18=0x0
    MR19=0x0
    MR24=0x8
    MR25=0xFF
    channel 1
    CS = 0
    MR0=0xB8
    MR4=0x1
    MR5=0xFF
    MR8=0x8
    MR12=0x72
    MR14=0x72
    MR18=0x0
    MR19=0x0
    MR24=0x8
    MR25=0xFF
    CS = 1
    MR0=0x38
    MR4=0x1
    MR5=0xFF
    MR8=0x8
    MR12=0x72
    MR14=0x72
    MR18=0x0
    MR19=0x0
    MR24=0x8
    MR25=0xFF
    channel 0 training pass!
    channel 1 training pass!
    change freq to 400MHz 0,1
    channel 0
    CS = 0
    MR0=0xB8
    MR4=0x1
    MR5=0xFF
    MR8=0x8
    MR12=0x72
    MR14=0x72
    MR18=0x0
    MR19=0x0
    MR24=0x8
    MR25=0xFF
    CS = 1
    MR0=0x38
    MR4=0x1
    MR5=0xFF
    MR8=0x8
    MR12=0x72
    MR14=0x72
    MR18=0x0
    MR19=0x0
    MR24=0x8
    MR25=0xFF
    channel 1
    CS = 0
    MR0=0xB8
    MR4=0x1
    MR5=0xFF
    MR8=0x8
    MR12=0x72
    MR14=0x72
    MR18=0x0
    MR19=0x0
    MR24=0x8
    MR25=0xFF
    CS = 1
    MR0=0x38
    MR4=0x1
    MR5=0xFF
    MR8=0x8
    MR12=0x72
    MR14=0x72
    MR18=0x0
    MR19=0x0
    MR24=0x8
    MR25=0xFF
    channel 0 training pass!
    channel 1 training pass!
    change freq to 800MHz 1,0
    Channel 0: LPDDR4,800MHz
    Bus Width=32 Col=10 Bank=8 Row=15/15 CS=2 Die Bus-Width=16 Size=2048MB
    Channel 1: LPDDR4,800MHz
    Bus Width=32 Col=10 Bank=8 Row=15/15 CS=2 Die Bus-Width=16 Size=2048MB
    256B stride
    ch 0 ddrconfig = 0x101, ddrsize = 0x2020
    ch 1 ddrconfig = 0x101, ddrsize = 0x2020
    pmugrf_os_reg[2] = 0x3AA1FAA1, stride = 0xD
    OUT
    Boot1: 2018-06-26, version: 1.14
    CPUId = 0x0
    ChipType = 0x10, 220
    Spi_ChipId = b4016
    SpiBootInit:0
    mmc0:cmd8,32
    mmc0:cmd5,32
    mmc0:cmd55,32
    mmc0:cmd1,32
    mmc0:cmd8,32
    mmc0:cmd5,32
    mmc0:cmd55,32
    mmc0:cmd1,32
    mmc0:cmd8,32
    mmc0:cmd5,32
    mmc0:cmd55,32
    mmc0:cmd1,32
    SdmmcInit=0 1
    StorageInit ok = 21697
    SecureMode = 0
    SecureInit ret = 0, SecureMode = 0
    GPT vendor signature is wrong
    LoadTrust Addr:0x1800
    No find bl30.bin
    No find bl32.bin
    Load uboot, ReadLba = 1000
    Load OK, addr=0x200000, size=0xf1664
    RunBL31 0x10000
    NOTICE: BL31: v1.3(debug):0e7a845
    NOTICE: BL31: Built : 16:13:46, Apr 17 2019
    NOTICE: BL31: Rockchip release version: v1.1
    INFO: GICv3 with legacy support detected. ARM GICV3 driver initialized in EL3
    INFO: Using opteed sec cpu_context!
    INFO: boot cpu mask: 0
    INFO: plat_rockchip_pmu_init(1181): pd status 3e
    INFO: BL31: Initializing runtime services
    WARNING: No OPTEE provided by BL2 boot loader, Booting device without OPTEE initialization. SMC`s destined for OPTEE will return SMC_UNK
    ERROR: Error initializing runtime service opteed_fast
    INFO: BL31: Preparing for EL3 exit to normal world
    INFO: Entry point address = 0x200000
    INFO: SPSR = 0x3c9

    U-Boot 2017.09-2697-ge41695afe3 (Dec 19 2020 - 04:46:31 +0000), Build: jenkins-linux-build-release-436

    Model: Radxa ROCK Pi 4B
    PreSerial: 2
    DRAM: 3.9 GiB
    Relocation Offset is: f5bde000
    Sysmem: init
    I2c speed: 400000Hz
    PMIC: RK808
    vdd_center 900000 uV
    vdd_cpu_l 900000 uV
    MMC: dwmmc@fe320000: 1, sdhci@fe330000: 0
    Using default environment

    Model: Radxa ROCK Pi 4B

    Error: “rkimg_bootdev” not defined

    Bootdev: mmc 1
    MMC: no card present
    mmc_init: -123, time 0
    rockchip_get_bootdev: can’t find dev_desc!
    [Vendor ERROR]:Invalid boot device type(0)
    MMC: no card present
    mmc_init: -123, time 0
    rockchip_get_bootdev: can’t find dev_desc!
    [Vendor ERROR]:Invalid boot device type(0)
    MMC: no card present
    mmc_init: -123, time 0
    rockchip_get_bootdev: can’t find dev_desc!
    rockchip_get_boot_mode: dev_desc is NULL!
    MMC: no card present
    mmc_init: -123, time 0
    rockchip_get_bootdev: can’t find dev_desc!
    init_resource_list: dev_desc is NULL!
    Can’t find file:logo.bmp
    failed to display uboot logo
    CLK: (uboot. arml: enter 816000 KHz, init 816000 KHz, kernel 0N/A)
    CLK: (uboot. armb: enter 24000 KHz, init 24000 KHz, kernel 0N/A)
    aplll 816000 KHz
    apllb 24000 KHz
    dpll 800000 KHz
    cpll 24000 KHz
    gpll 800000 KHz
    npll 600000 KHz
    vpll 24000 KHz
    aclk_perihp 133333 KHz
    hclk_perihp 66666 KHz
    pclk_perihp 33333 KHz
    aclk_perilp0 266666 KHz
    hclk_perilp0 88888 KHz
    pclk_perilp0 44444 KHz
    hclk_perilp1 100000 KHz
    pclk_perilp1 50000 KHz
    Net: eth0: ethernet@fe300000
    Hit key to stop autoboot(‘CTRL+C’): 0
    Here trying to boot from nvme
    dcache off

    Device 0: RKPARM: Invalid parameter part table
    Vendor: 0x1f99 Rev: GTb57903 Prod: 4E09O8GE92KR6MG9DEMN
    Type: Hard Disk
    Capacity: 976762.3 MB = 953.8 GB (2000409264 x 512)
    … is now current device
    Scanning nvme 0:1…
    Found U-Boot script /boot/boot.scr
    3020 bytes read in 5 ms (589.8 KiB/s)

    Executing script at 00500000

    372 bytes read in 4 ms (90.8 KiB/s)
    30095872 bytes read in 259 ms (110.8 MiB/s)
    13140474 bytes read in 112 ms (111.9 MiB/s)
    81775 bytes read in 17 ms (4.6 MiB/s)
    ** File not found /boot/dtb/rockchip/overlay/rockchip-pcie-gen2.dtbo **
    2825 bytes read in 11 ms (250 KiB/s)
    Applying kernel provided DT fixup script (rockchip-fixup.scr)

    Executing script at 09000000

    Loading init Ramdisk from Legacy Image at 0a200000 …

    Image Name: uInitrd
    Image Type: AArch64 Linux RAMDisk Image (gzip compressed)
    Data Size: 13140410 Bytes = 12.5 MiB
    Load Address: 00000000
    Entry Point: 00000000
    Verifying Checksum … OK

    Flattened Device Tree blob at 08300000

    Booting using the fdt blob at 0x8300000
    reserving fdt memory region: addr=8300000 size=7a000
    Loading Ramdisk to e913c000, end e9dc41ba … OK
    Loading Device Tree to 00000000e90bf000, end 00000000e913bfff … OK
    Adding bank: 0x00200000 - 0xf8000000 (size: 0xf7e00000)
    Total: 19104.19 ms

    Starting kernel …

  9. UART output with 1Tb NVME does not contain some obvious critical errors, so I burned SD card with Armbian, put 1Tb NVME to SSD case, loaded from SD, mounted NVME with DietPi and tried to edit /boot/dietpiEnv.txt to set verbosity=7, but nothing changed after that – same output. But at least I understand that all my data (more or less) on NVME is accessible/readable.

  10. And my zero mistake was before starting “migration” – last dietpi backup was made in April 2025 – half year ago, so have no recovery snapshot.

  11. Also tried fsck on both NVME – was some mistakes, but after repairing them nothing changed.

And now I’m having:

  1. 256 Gb NVME with bad CRC checksum (but still is mountable with SSD case after loading from SD)
  2. 1Tb NVME with stucks on “Starting kernel ...” with partitions sizes from 256 Gb one
  3. No hope to start my old system without fresh install.
DietPi Version

G_DIETPI_VERSION_CORE=9
G_DIETPI_VERSION_SUB=11
G_DIETPI_VERSION_RC=2
G_GITBRANCH=‘master’
G_GITOWNER=‘MichaIng’

Maybe someone have any thoughts:

  1. How I can try to restore my old setup? Where to look at? I am out of ideas.
  2. Or maybe there is easy way to make fresh install and migrate all installations/configurations from the old one? (maybe there are some lists of installed dietpi-software)? dietpi_userdata is also accessible btw, and it has all critical for me Home Assistant settings (and maybe some other apps).