RPi3 USB boot without SD card?

This forum is for topics specific to the Raspberry Pi and Arch Linux ARM

RPi3 USB boot without SD card?

Postby PeterAOBell » Sun Dec 01, 2019 2:52 am

I am attempting to get RPi3 to boot from USB flash drive, without the need for an SD card. (I hate microSD - I find that they're terribly unreliable)

I have both Raspbian and LibreElec/KODI booting without SD card, but have been unsuccessful with Arch. It seems to me that Arch always expects to access /dev/mmcblk0p1 even though the system almost completes booting from USB. Apart from setting root=/dev/sda2 in cmdline.txt, is there anything else I need to do?

Screen photos attached of boot screen without the SD card inserted and with the SD card inserted (taken immediately before the system fully starts up).

Edit:
Errr... I uploaded jpegs, but don't see them attached here.
PeterAOBell
 
Posts: 11
Joined: Sat Mar 15, 2014 6:49 am

Re: RPi3 USB boot without SD card?

Postby ufo6000 » Sun Dec 01, 2019 8:56 am

yes, check your /etc/fstab !

And for clarification: do you use armv7l or aarch64 ? Or the other way: which image did you use for installing?
ArchLinuxARM-rpi-2-latest.tar.gz
ArchLinuxARM-rpi-3-latest.tar.gz

Because they have different boot scripts.
ufo6000
 
Posts: 117
Joined: Fri Jan 22, 2016 7:54 pm

Re: RPi3 USB boot without SD card?

Postby PeterAOBell » Sun Dec 01, 2019 9:51 am

Thanks very much - that was it! I knew that I had to be missing something obvious! At one stage I had adjusted fstab, but then got diverted with another issue!

I'm using the armv7l image, because the system I'm developing uses a network of RPis - at the moment some are RPi2 (v1.2) and some RPi3. The devices are hidden within roof spaces (domestic lighting control), so not very accessible when the SD card fails!
PeterAOBell
 
Posts: 11
Joined: Sat Mar 15, 2014 6:49 am


Return to Raspberry Pi

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 10 guests