How to create a proper bootable SD Card to orange 4G-IOT ?

miguelRozsas

Hi there !
I just bought a orange 4G IOT board (labeled as "4G-IOT 2018.1.15") and I am not getting any video output of it.
To be honest, I am not sure it is booting at all, since in previous models, just after the power on I can see a rainbow image on display, but on this model, I got just a black screen, and "no video signal" message (generated by monitor itself).
I don't know if this is relevant or not since I don't know if this model is supposed to display that rainbow image at startup, anyway....

What I've done so far:
1) boot without any SDCard (in the hope there is something installed on eMMC, just like orange 3pi 8eMMC version)
2) boot with a SD card with the image found at  https://drive.google.com/drive/f ... qSfr3MPT58-Z1tQBex8 (Google Drive/Shared with me/Orange Pi 4G-IOT/Linux/SD Card)
This image is mostly corrupted I guess, there is nothing on boot partition, it is empty....check it out:

1. 
   
2. root@fenix:/home/miguel# fdisk -l /home/miguel/Downloads/3G_linux_v01.img
   
3. Disk /home/miguel/Downloads/3G_linux_v01.img: 371.3 MiB, 389332992 bytes, 760416 sectors
   
4. Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
   
5. Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
   
6. I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
   
7. Disklabel type: dos
   
8. Disk identifier: 0x98e1904e
   
9. 
   
10. Device                                   Boot  Start    End Sectors   Size Id Type
    
11. /home/miguel/Downloads/3G_linux_v01.img1       40960 143359  102400    50M  c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
    
12. /home/miguel/Downloads/3G_linux_v01.img2      143360 760415  617056 301.3M 83 Linux
    
13. root@fenix:/home/miguel# mount -o ro,loop,offset=$((40960*512)),sizelimit=$((102400*512)) ~miguel/Downloads/3G_linux_v01.img mnt/p1
    
14. root@fenix:/home/miguel# ls -la mnt/p1
    
15. total 20
    
16. drwxr-xr-x 2 root   root   16384 Dec 31  1969 .
    
17. drwxrwxr-x 4 miguel miguel  4096 Dec  2 09:41 ..
    
18. root@fenix:/home/miguel#
    

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However, the other partition is fine, it has the usual files, as expected.

3 ) Then I've tried with another sd image, this time 3G_linux_v01.img from the OPI 3G-IOT-A and it has the same empty boot partition. At this point I started wondering that it is not a bad image at all, but something different.
The problem is I' ve read and followed the guide but there is nothing different from the usual, I mean using Etcher balena to write the image to SD Card.
Anyway, I use the dd to write the image to the sd card, and I got the same result, I mean, the same empty boot partition on sd card ("dd bs=4M if=/home/miguel/Downloads/4G_linux_v01.img of=/dev/sdh conv=fsync")

There is a second file on the Google shared folder with files that looks like a boot content: "4G_ubuntu_sd.tar"
So I mounted the sd card boot partition and wrote that files on it:

1. root@fenix:/home/miguel# cd /media/miguel/BOOT/
   
2. root@fenix:/media/miguel/BOOT# tar -xvf ~miguel/Downloads/4G_ubuntu_sd.tar
   
3. ubuntu/
   
4. ubuntu/MT6737M_Android_scatter.txt
   
5. ubuntu/recovery.img
   
6. ubuntu/preloader_bd6737m_35g_b_m0.bin
   
7. ubuntu/secro.img
   
8. ubuntu/logo.bin
   
9. ubuntu/trustzone.bin
   
10. ubuntu/lk.bin
    
11. ubuntu/boot.img
    
12. root@fenix:/media/miguel/BOOT#

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But, again, no video signal on monitor.

I've tried to move thoses files to the root of boot filesystem (I mean not inside the ubuntu folder), but, again, no video signal nor indication a sucessfully boot occured.
BTW, after power on, the red led turns on and after a while, the green led turns on. WHat is the meaning of green led ? May I assume the green led means a sucessful boot ? If so, why I don't have a video output ?

So, How to create a proper bootable SD Card to orange 4G-IOT with HDMI video output ?

best regards

SrS

Hi,
I know this is an old post but I have the exact same problem. Did you resolve this issue ? and could you tell me what was done. Thanks

cloudedmund

from what i gathered, video output is not supported.
have to use the onboard UART ( RX TX GND) for serial connection.
and by default these pin aren't brought out.

abel1303

The device should boot from the drift hunters SD Card and start the installation process for the operating system.