Is it a cheap micro SD card? I've found anything below Class 10 is
unworkable in the RPI.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SD_card#Class
Thanks,
-Jason
On Sun, Jan 24, 2021 at 2:14 PM <kperry@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Probably silly question but if you wrote this on windows did you eject
first and wait? Second ifit is windows did you unmount the sd card after
writing it before using it?
Ken
-----Original Message-----
From: raspberry-vi-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <raspberry-vi-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
On Behalf Of Mobeen Iqbal
Sent: Sunday, January 24, 2021 4:49 AM
To: raspberry-vi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [raspberry-vi] Micro SD Card nightmare, can anyone help?
Hello Everyone.
Recently, I got myself a pi 4 with 8GB of ram. I was rather looking
forward to seeing what it had to offer. Whilst I was at it, I bought my
self a samsung evo plus 128GB Micro SD card, under the assumption that I
could use the larger SD card in the pi4 and take advantage of the extra
storage. You may wonder why I would need the storage. I am working on a
project which could require the storing of rather large files, and whilst I
could store the files to an external device, there are times when I want
them on the card for convenience so I can image the card and keep a backup.
I wrote the latest raspbian lite image to the SD card and booted the pi.
Everything seemed to be going OK, until I actually tried to use it. The pi
was fine with writing larger files, but when performing operations such as
apt-get upgrade where lots of smaller files were involved and lots of IOPS
were being carried out, the SD card slowed to a crawl. It would take the pi
more than an hour to update.
My next step was to try a different brand of micro SD card. I bought a
128GB Sandisk extreme pro micro SD card. I wrote the lite image to the
card, booted and it was running like a dream. Updating fine within 15
minutes, file copy speeds were amazing, the usual.
Thinking I was on to a winner, I bought myself a second pi4, and bought
another sandisk Micro SD card, exactly the same as the first.
I wrote the image to the card and booted. The pi wouldn't boot. It would
get as far as resizing the partition then hang. I couldn't SSH in or
anything.
Thinking it might be the image, I tried a different one, as another lite
image had been released in early January. Still no joy. OK I thought, it
must be the software.
I tried formatting the micro SD card using the official SD formatter tool,
then tried burning the image with etcher, win flash tool, and roadkill's
disk imager. All 3 times, the pi would refuse to boot and would hang at the
same stage.
I also tried zeroing the card and formatting the micro SD card using the
fat32 file system, again using the recommended guiformat SD software.
Still no joy when the image was written.
I then tried to write the image using DD in linux, using a completely
different card reader to eliminate both the reader and the operating
system/software. The image was successfully written and all of the
partitions were showing up as expected. However, the pi would still not
boot.
I had a 32GB micro SD card handy, so I thought I would try using that card
instead using the above methods of writing the image. Still no joy.
Finally, I tried an alternative image from raspberry-asterisk.org. This
is an image which includes the FreePBX switchboard software. This time, the
pi did boot and I was able to log in. However, the partitions were not
resized as they had disabled the auto resize script. No problem I thought,
I'll use the raspi-config script. The resizing process started, but hung on
syncing disks. I couldn't get it to progress beyond that point.
OK I thought, it could be a faulty batch of cards. I bought another card,
this time I tried with a 256GB microSD card made by sandisk.
Here's where things got interesting. I wrote various images to the card
based on raspbian lite. At first, I had exactly the same issue, i.e hanging
on boot. The FreePBX image would boot, but still wouldn't resize. I
remembered about the latest raspbian lite image which I hadn't yet tried. I
wrote it to the card a few times, trying different software, different card
readers, the usual. On the 4th or 5th attempt, the image booted fine. The
partitions were resized, and I was able to use the pi as usual and the
256GB micro SD card is working like a dream.
To prove the point, I installed freePBX, which is quite an intensive
installation process involving multiple reboots and plenty of IOPS.
My question is this. Why are the images working sometimes and not others?
The first pi with a 128GB card and the second pi with the 256GB card are
both working fine, but I don't know what changed in the image writing
process to make them work. Also, why do they seem to work on some cards of
the same brand but not others? I have run HW2Test on the cards to see if
they're genuine and they pass the tests.
I have double checked to make sure the partition UUID isn't changing after
the resize script runs, and it seems to be fine.
If it was an issue with the cards, surely they wouldn't boot or work at
all. Are we still at the stage that the pi4 can't support booting from
larger micro SD cards? If so, then it's certainly a shame now that larger
SD cards are cheaper than they were. Smaller cards aren't going to be made
forever. I also tried resizing the partitions manually on the FreePBX image
using another linux box. The resize went absolutely fine, but the pi
refused to boot from the new partition after the resize. I haven't yet
tried making sure the partition UUID is the same, as I was giving up by
this point. Why should I have to use another linux system to resize the
partitions? I am wondering if it is to do with the way the pi powers down
after a reboot. If the partitions are resizing and the pi is restarting,
perhaps the reboot isn't completing? I did try turning the power off and
back on when the pi was hanging, still no joy.
I have also tried the cards on a known working Pi4 with the same results.
Does anyone have any theories as to what could be going on? I can't think
of anything else to try at this stage. I could switch to another operating
system such as arch, but there are certain projects where I would prefer to
use raspbian if possible. I could try different brands of cards, but I am
unsure which brands to try next. Also, I don't want to end up with too many
cards that I can't use. I've never had this issue with previous raspberry
pi's. I have some model 2B's and model 3B's and all images have worked fine
on there, even if I've used a larger SD card such as 64GB. Does anyone have
any ideas?
Thanks for reading,
Mo.
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===========================================================
The raspberry-vi mailing list
Archives: //www.freelists.org/archives/raspberry-vi
Administrative contact: <mike.ray@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
-----------------------------------------------------------
Raspberry Pi and the Raspberry Pi logo are trademarks of the Raspberry Pi
Foundation.
This list is not affiliated to the Raspberry Pi Foundation and the views
and attitudes expressed by the subscribers to this list do not reflect
those of the Foundation.
Mike Ray, list creator, January 2013
