The device can boot from the microSD card, or from eMMC (which is optional). There is an NVMe SSD slot, but the device is not capable of booting from SSD. The best you can do is to install the root partition to the SSD and boot from the eMMC.
Go to the vendor’s download link and get the images for SD and SD-to-eMMc. You will have to choose which operating system you want. For this tutorial I am using ubuntu on both the laptop and the NanoPi.
Burn the SD-to-eMMc image to a microSD card and install the image to the R6C.
Now burn the SD image to a microSD card and start up the NanoPi from the SD. We do this so as not to mount the eMMC partitions.
Do sudo fdisk -l to list all mounted partitions. /dev/mmcblk0 is the microSD card. /dev/mmcblk2 is the eMMC. /dev/nvme0n1 is the SSD. The root partition on the eMMC is /dev/mmcblk2p8.
Do sudo fdisk /dev/nvme0n1 and create the new root partition on the SSD. Give it the default start offset of 2028, and the same size (7995392) as the existing root partition:
pi@NanoPi-R6C:~$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/nvme0n1
Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 465.76 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
Disk model: CT500P3PSSD8
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x4a4a7129
Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/nvme0n1p1 2048 7997439 7995392 3.8G 83 Linux
Format the partition:
sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/nvme0n1p1
Copy the contents of the old partition to the new one:
sudo dd if=/dev/mmcblk2p8 of=/dev/nvme0n1p1
Now you can mount the new partition and take a look at it to confirm that it is okay:
pi@NanoPi-R6C:~$ mkdir mnt
pi@NanoPi-R6C:~$ sudo mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 mnt
pi@NanoPi-R6C:~$ ls mnt
bin dev home lost+found mnt proc run snap sys tmp var
boot etc lib media opt root sbin srv system usr
On the NanoPi, do sudo reboot. In the serial console, look out for the line below…
Hit key to stop autoboot('CTRL+C'):
…and when you see it, hit Ctrl-C. Now you are at the U-Boot “monitor” (command line prompt).
Print out the existing value of the boot arguments:
=> print bootargs
bootargs=storagemedia=sd androidboot.storagemedia=sd androidboot.mode=normal androidboot.dtbo_idx=1
Overwrite it with the existing value, appending root=/dev/nvme0n1p1:
=> setenv bootargs ootargs=storagemedia=sd androidboot.storagemedia=sd androidboot.mode=normal androidboot.dtbo_idx=1 root=/dev/nvme0n1p1
Now enter the command below to exit the monitor and continue with the boot:
=> boot
In the output that scrolls by from the serial port, you will see:
[ 274.055328] Kernel command line: bootargs=storagemedia=sd androidboot.storagemedia=sd androidboot.mode=normal androidboot.dtbo_idx=1 root=/dev/mmcblk2p8 androidboot.verifiedbootstate=orange earlycon=uart8250,mmio32,0xfeb50000 console=ttyFIQ0 coherent_pool=1m irqchip.gicv3_pseudo_nmi=0 rw rootfstype=ext4 data=/dev/mmcblk0p9 consoleblank=0 cgroup_enable=cpuset cgroup_memory=1 cgroup_enable=memory swapaccount=1
Our fix didn’t work, it is still loading the root partition from /dev/mmcblk2p8. I did some digging and it turns out that the bootloader disregards any values entered into the monitor (I believe that this is a flaw in the vendor’s implementation of U-Boot). So we will have to do it another way.
We are going to make a little edit to the source code of the bootloader, and then recompile it and install it.
The instructions for compiling the bootloader are here. Before you run the build command, edit file arch/arm/mach-rockchip/board.c, function board_fdt_chosen_bootargs, and add the additional lines shown below:
bootargs = env_get("bootargs");
printf("\n###BEFORE\n%s\n###\n", bootargs); // new code
env_update("bootargs", "root=/dev/nvme0n1p1"); // new code
bootargs = env_get("bootargs"); // new code
printf("\n###AFTER\n%s\n###\n", bootargs); // new code
if (dump)
printf("## bootargs(merged): %s\n\n", bootargs);
return (char *)bootargs;
Now build U-Boot.
Now you have to rebuild the SD image. The manufacturer’s instructions to do that are here. Replace the stock uboot.img with the one you built. You can either build the SD image to test these changes using the microSD card, and/or the SD-to-eMMC image to apply these changes to the eMMC.
Restart the device. Now in the serial port you should see the effect of your change:
###BEFORE
bootargs=storagemedia=sd androidboot.storagemedia=sd androidboot.mode=normal androidboot.dtbo_idx=1 root=/dev/mmcblk0p8 androidboot.verifiedbootstate=orange earlycon=uart8250,mmio32,0xfeb50000 console=ttyFIQ0 coherent_pool=1m irqchip.gicv3_pseudo_nmi=0 rw rootfstype=ext4 data=/dev/mmcblk0p9 consoleblank=0 cgroup_enable=cpuset cgroup_memory=1 cgroup_enable=memory swapaccount=1
###
###AFTER
bootargs=storagemedia=sd androidboot.storagemedia=sd androidboot.mode=normal androidboot.dtbo_idx=1 root=/dev/nvme0n1p1 androidboot.verifiedbootstate=orange earlycon=uart8250,mmio32,0xfeb50000 console=ttyFIQ0 coherent_pool=1m irqchip.gicv3_pseudo_nmi=0 rw rootfstype=ext4 data=/dev/mmcblk0p9 consoleblank=0 cgroup_enable=cpuset cgroup_memory=1 cgroup_enable=memory swapaccount=1
###
And it loads the root partition from NVMe:
[ 274.055328] Kernel command line: bootargs=storagemedia=sd androidboot.storagemedia=sd androidboot.mode=normal androidboot.dtbo_idx=1 root=/dev/nvme0n1p1 androidboot.verifiedbootstate=orange earlycon=uart8250,mmio32,0xfeb50000 console=ttyFIQ0 coherent_pool=1m irqchip.gicv3_pseudo_nmi=0 rw rootfstype=ext4 data=/dev/mmcblk0p9 consoleblank=0 cgroup_enable=cpuset cgroup_memory=1 cgroup_enable=memory swapaccount=1
You can confirm this by executing the command below after you log in to the machine:
pi@NanoPi-R6C:~$ cat /proc/cmdline
bootargs=storagemedia=sd androidboot.storagemedia=sd androidboot.mode=normal androidboot.dtbo_idx=1 root=/dev/nvme0n1p1 androidboot.verifiedbootstate=orange earlycon=uart8250,mmio32,0xfeb50000 console=ttyFIQ0 coherent_pool=1m irqchip.gicv3_pseudo_nmi=0 rw rootfstype=ext4 data=/dev/mmcblk0p9 consoleblank=0 cgroup_enable=cpuset cgroup_memory=1 cgroup_enable=memory swapaccount=1