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Booting from eMMC or SATA SSD

Hello,

Can the DM8148 boot directly from eMMC or SATA SSD?

Kind regards,
Krzysztof 

  • Hello,

    Krzysztof Mlodozeniec1 said:
    Can the DM8148 boot directly from eMMC or SATA SSD?

    No, DM8148 can not boot directly from SATA.

    You could check for the software supported boot modes here: 

    http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/TI81XX_PSP_U-Boot#U-Boot_Configurations

    Best Regards,

    Margarita

  • Hi Margarita,

    Does u-boot for DM814x support reading from SATA drive? 

    Thanks,

    Andrei

  • Hi,

    I should check myself before asking. It seems there is no implementation for DM814x SATA in the u-boot.

    Is TI going to add support SATA in the u-boot?

    Thanks,

    Andrei

  • Andrei,

    No, driect boot from SATA is not supported. However, if you want to boot from SATA, it is possible to do so by using a two stage boot, ie, boot the device from a small SPI flash, and the boot code in the SPI flash can init the SATA drive, cloks, DDR etc and boot from the SATA hard disk.

    BR
    Pavel

  • Hi Pavel,

    Thanks very much for your quick reply.

    I've actually done this. I loaded kernel image from NAND and defined rootfs been on SATA device. 

    I confirm it works but in all other our boot-scenarios in the u-boot I read from file system user defined u-boot script to alter default configuration if it's necessary. So basically, it would be extremely useful if we could read from SATA drive in the u-boot. 

    Well, question remains the same. Is TI going to add SATA support in the u-boot for DM814x/816x? Any plans?

    Thanks in advance,

    Andrei

  • Andrei,

    There was a similar question for the USB u-boot support. And the answer from our PSP team was that USB is not planned. I suspect that the case with the SATA is the same. I will check with the PSP team, but most probably, SATA boot is not planned. Also have a look in the DM814x TRM, chapter 4 ROM Code. The DM814x ROM code does not support SATA boot (i.e. ROM code supports PCIe boot), and ROM Code can not be changed.

    BR
    Pavel

  • Pavel,

    I might disappoint you but it seems USB is supported in the u-boot. I use not the latest release of EZSDK 5_04_00_11 and I could load files from FAT partition. I did not try yet EXT3 but I think it should work as device is up and running. 

    fatls usb 0 /
        tft/
        .trash-1000/
        ipk/
        log/
        ti/
        videos/
        hnv/
        34301406 ms_ti_dm814x_revd_bb_hug.pdf
       .trash-975183010/

    1 file(s), 8 dir(s)

    I can also read file:

    Z3-DM8148# fatload usb 0 0x81000000 /tft/id_rsa

    1671 bytes read

    It seems working. I'm using u-boot version from Z3, which actually based on PSP release. I did not check but unlikely they have added USB support theirself.

    I think USB support is added in the kernel (not in the kernel modules), so there is a big chance that I should be able to boot from USB as well. But this is not my attention for the moment.  

    I hope that one day, I will discover SATA is added as well. 

    Best regards,


    Andrei

  • Andrei,

    From what I understand you still not load the 1st stage boot loader (MLO,x-loader) from USB, is that correct? You just load files from USB mass storage devices into memory, from the 2nd stage bootloader (u-boot.bin). I suspect that Z3 technology made some updates for this. Can you try the same with the latest EZSDK 5.05.02.00 with the default config? Are you able to do the same?

    Regarding the SATA. Let me confirm something.

    1. You want to load the first stage bootloader (MLO/x-loader) from SATA

    2. You want to load the second stage bootloader (u-boot.bin) from SATA

    3. You want to load the linux kernel (uImage) from SATA

    Which of these 3 options you need to have?

    BR
    Pavel

  • Hi Pavel,

    I tried to compile u-boot for EVM EZSDK 5.05.02.00 and it failed saying "error: #error USB Lowlevel not defined". 

    Well it looks like you are right, this is Z3 specific implementation. 

    Regarding your question. Ideally I want Q3 to be implemented but as this is not possible I load kernel image from row NAND and provide SATA  device for u-boot bootargs so I can stat root file system from SATA.

    B.R.,

    Andrei

  • Andrei,

    The response from the PSP team:

    This is not supported for any of our TI81xx devices (which share the same uboot baseline, which is quite old).  
     
    Support for SATA was included in later Uboot versions – and there could be port for this on the OMAP5 uboot code, though porting it back to older uboot version could be non-trivial.

  • Hi Pavel,

    Thanks very much for your help.

    I'd like to see what is going on with OMAP5. I don't have any OMAP5 board yet but but I"m going to order OMAP5432-EVM.

    Thanks again.

    Andrei