Flashing BeagleBone Black from microSD card?

Question

I am trying to flash a BeagleBone Black from a microSD card. Here are my steps:

Insert 8GB microSD into reader on computer
dd bs=1M if=debian-jessie-console-armhf-flasher-2015-02-25-2gb.img of=/dev/sdc1
Open gparted, make sure /dev/sdc1 has boot flag
Remove microSD from computer, insert into BBB
Hold S2 button and insert miniUSB for power

However, nothing happens. The LEDs do not flash and the BBB does not even boot normally. If I remove the miniUSB and reinsert it without holding S2, it boots its old install on the eMMC. I have also tried this method with the bone-debian-8.7-lxqt-4gb-armhf-2017-03-19-4gb.img image, same result.

I have also tried booting the BBB normally and running ./init-eMMC-flasher-v3.sh, but it only gives this output before exiting:

Starting eMMC Flasher
-----------------------------
Checking for Valid BBB EEPROM header

At this point I am stumped because this is all the documentation I can find. This should work, and I have dd'd five different cards and tested on three different BBBs now with no results.

user5104897 · Accepted Answer · 2017-04-20 18:14:00Z

1

Okay, I figured out the problem. In dd, you are supposed to write directly to the SD card device, NOT not to a specific partition of said device.

DO NOT do this: dd if=debian-jessie-console-armhf-flasher-2015-02-25-2gb.img of=/dev/sdc1

Instead, DO THIS: dd if=debian-jessie-console-armhf-flasher-2015-02-25-2gb.img of=/dev/sdc

Notice that in the second example, I did not include the 1 at the end of /dev/sdc to specify a partition.

answered Apr 20, 2017 at 18:14

user5104897

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TBR Over a year ago

Note that this is not the latest image. beagleboard.org/latest-images - For instructions on how to turn an image into a flasher: elinux.org/Beagleboard:BeagleBoneBlack_Debian#Flashing_eMMC

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