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From: bp@www.zefox.net
Newsgroups: comp.sys.raspberry-pi
Subject: Re: Bootcode.bin-only boot mode, latest version?
Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2025 20:06:46 -0000 (UTC)
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
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Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> bp@www.zefox.net wrote:
>> 
>> Does anybody know of a more recent version of the file? Recent
>> boot attempts have failed to find the USB disk, but the disk
>> and SATA-to_USB adapter are recognized without a problem on
>> both FreeBSD and RasPiOS Bookworm, suggesting both are ok.
> 
> That's the official repo so I don't think you'll find a newer version.
> 
Ok, thank you. I thought as much but don't follow the Pi forums well
and hoped I'd missed something.

> Do you have the other files on the USB disc, ie start*.elf, fixup*.dat, etc?
>

Maybe it's significant that both red and green LEDs stay on while
the Pi attempts netboot? 

The microSD has bootcode.bin and timeout, with a directory named
"unused" containing other leftover files. The USB drive contains
a normal complement of FreeBSD boot files, starting with u-boot.
This setup worked until last night, when the FreeBSD system crashed
with nothing on the serial console and declined to reboot via plug-
pulling. 

> Did you try another USB disc, in case there's something about this
> particular one the bootloader doesn't like?  

I don't have one handy, but maybe that's a necessary step I'd hoped
to avoid. If I put a RasPiOS microSD in and apply power, the card
boots and can read the USB disk. If I plug the USB disk into
either FreeBSD or Bookworm the disk is recognized and smartctl
reports "passed" for the health check.  

On PCs it's not unknown for
> them to refuse to boot certain USB devices.  Kernels have more flexibility
> to work around strange implementation quirks than firmware does.
>
Are they known to suddenly stop booting a formerly bootable device?

Repartitioning and re-copying bootcode.bin to the microSD worked
without errors but still won't boot. 
Thanks for writing,

bob prohaska