making a nook-bootable SD card (in general) on Linux - Nook Color Android Development

It took me a while to figure out why verygreen's image worked, but I was not able to reproduce the result by creating my own partitions and copying his files over. Looking more closely at verygreen's image and my own, I noticed that the first partitions started at different positions. I was able to get my homebrew SD card working just by making the first partition start at the 63rd sector:
Code:
$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdb
Disk /dev/sdb: 15.9 GB, 15931539456 bytes
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 15193 cylinders, total 31116288 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000e525a
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 63 329790 164864 e W95 FAT16 (LBA)
/dev/sdb2 329791 1312830 491520 83 Linux
/dev/sdb3 1312831 3409982 1048576 83 Linux
/dev/sdb4 3409983 31116287 13853152+ c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
How do you do this using fdisk? After you create the first partition, type 'x' for extra functionality (experts only). From there, you could then type 'b', then '1', then '63' to make your first partition start at the right place. Press 'r' to return to the main menu, and make the rest of your partitions from there. Note that this operation breaks whatever filesystem was originally on the first partition, so it would need to be reformatted. MAKE BACKUPS. Don't forget to write changes!
FatTire and nemith confirmed that the first partition needed to be special, and pointed to this informational page. It even contains a nifty script. I didn't need most of that, since tweaking the beginning-of-data worked for me every time, but give it a read anyway.

---

You know, I'm sure this was something very simple for the ones that knew. But I too struggled with creating a bootable sdcard from scratch. I would set up all the correct partitions with the correct flags and still nogo. Who would've thought it would be something as simple as that. Thanks for this!
-Racks

---

Now I can create my own "Verygreen" installer img, muah ha hah... It was that whole formatting the uSD thing with those special considerations that has been tripping me up the whole time.

---

This didnt work for me, anyone have a script that could format a boot partition and an ext 3 partition with it? one with custom boot size like 4Gb fat or 3GB fat or 5GB fat prefferably 4.5GB but if you know how to customise the script below to create 4.5 GB fat partiton right now this creates only a 73 Mb fat partition the rest ext3
#! /bin/sh
# mkcard.sh v0.5
# (c) Copyright 2009 Graeme Gregory <[email protected]>
# Licensed under terms of GPLv2
#
# Parts of the procudure base on the work of Denys Dmytriyenko
# http://wiki.omap.com/index.php/MMC_Boot_Format
export LC_ALL=C
if [ $# -ne 1 ]; then
echo "Usage: $0 <drive>"
exit 1;
fi
DRIVE=$1
dd if=/dev/zero of=$DRIVE bs=1024 count=1024
SIZE=`fdisk -l $DRIVE | grep Disk | grep bytes | awk '{print $5}'`
echo DISK SIZE - $SIZE bytes
CYLINDERS=`echo $SIZE/255/63/512 | bc`
echo CYLINDERS - $CYLINDERS
{
echo ,9,0x0C,*
echo ,,,-
} | sfdisk -D -H 255 -S 63 -C $CYLINDERS $DRIVE
sleep 1
if [ -x `which kpartx` ]; then
kpartx -a ${DRIVE}
fi
# handle various device names.
# note something like fdisk -l /dev/loop0 | egrep -E '^/dev' | cut -d' ' -f1
# won't work due to https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=649572
PARTITION1=${DRIVE}1
if [ ! -b ${PARTITION1} ]; then
PARTITION1=${DRIVE}p1
fi
DRIVE_NAME=`basename $DRIVE`
DEV_DIR=`dirname $DRIVE`
if [ ! -b ${PARTITION1} ]; then
PARTITION1=$DEV_DIR/mapper/${DRIVE_NAME}p1
fi
PARTITION2=${DRIVE}2
if [ ! -b ${PARTITION2} ]; then
PARTITION2=${DRIVE}p2
fi
if [ ! -b ${PARTITION2} ]; then
PARTITION2=$DEV_DIR/mapper/${DRIVE_NAME}p2
fi
# now make partitions.
if [ -b ${PARTITION1} ]; then
umount ${PARTITION1}
mkfs.vfat -F 32 -n "boot" ${PARTITION1}
else
echo "Cant find boot partition in /dev"
fi
if [ -b ${PARITION2} ]; then
umount ${PARTITION2}
mke2fs -j -L "Angstrom" ${PARTITION2}
else
echo "Cant find rootfs partition in /dev"
fi

---

DroidisLINUX said:
This didnt work for me, anyone have a script that could format a boot partition and an ext 3 partition with it? one with custom boot size like 4Gb fat or 3GB fat or 5GB fat prefferably 4.5GB but if you know how to customise the script below to create 4.5 GB fat partiton right now this creates only a 73 Mb fat partition the rest ext3
#! /bin/sh
# mkcard.sh v0.5
# (c) Copyright 2009 Graeme Gregory <[email protected]>
# Licensed under terms of GPLv2
#
# Parts of the procudure base on the work of Denys Dmytriyenko
# http://wiki.omap.com/index.php/MMC_Boot_Format
export LC_ALL=C
if [ $# -ne 1 ]; then
echo "Usage: $0 <drive>"
exit 1;
fi
DRIVE=$1
dd if=/dev/zero of=$DRIVE bs=1024 count=1024
SIZE=`fdisk -l $DRIVE | grep Disk | grep bytes | awk '{print $5}'`
echo DISK SIZE - $SIZE bytes
CYLINDERS=`echo $SIZE/255/63/512 | bc`
echo CYLINDERS - $CYLINDERS
{
echo ,9,0x0C,*
echo ,,,-
} | sfdisk -D -H 255 -S 63 -C $CYLINDERS $DRIVE
sleep 1
if [ -x `which kpartx` ]; then
kpartx -a ${DRIVE}
fi
# handle various device names.
# note something like fdisk -l /dev/loop0 | egrep -E '^/dev' | cut -d' ' -f1
# won't work due to https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=649572
PARTITION1=${DRIVE}1
if [ ! -b ${PARTITION1} ]; then
PARTITION1=${DRIVE}p1
fi
DRIVE_NAME=`basename $DRIVE`
DEV_DIR=`dirname $DRIVE`
if [ ! -b ${PARTITION1} ]; then
PARTITION1=$DEV_DIR/mapper/${DRIVE_NAME}p1
fi
PARTITION2=${DRIVE}2
if [ ! -b ${PARTITION2} ]; then
PARTITION2=${DRIVE}p2
fi
if [ ! -b ${PARTITION2} ]; then
PARTITION2=$DEV_DIR/mapper/${DRIVE_NAME}p2
fi
# now make partitions.
if [ -b ${PARTITION1} ]; then
umount ${PARTITION1}
mkfs.vfat -F 32 -n "boot" ${PARTITION1}
else
echo "Cant find boot partition in /dev"
fi
if [ -b ${PARITION2} ]; then
umount ${PARTITION2}
mke2fs -j -L "Angstrom" ${PARTITION2}
else
echo "Cant find rootfs partition in /dev"
fi
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Code:
# fdisk /dev/sdb
Command (m for help): o
Building a new DOS disklabel. Changes will remain in memory only,
until you decide to write them. After that, of course, the previous
content won't be recoverable.
Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 4 will be corrected by w(rite)
Print card info:
Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/sdb: 128 MB, 128450560 bytes
....
Note card size in bytes. Needed later below.
Then go into "Expert mode":
Command (m for help): x
Now we want to set the geometry to 255 heads, 63 sectors and calculate the number of cylinders required for the particular SD/MMC card:
Expert command (m for help): h
Number of heads (1-256, default 4): 255
Expert command (m for help): s
Number of sectors (1-63, default 62): 63
Warning: setting sector offset for DOS compatiblity
Expert command (m for help): c
Number of cylinders (1-1048576, default 1011): 15
In this case 128MB card is used (reported as 128450560 bytes by fdisk above), thus 128450560 / 255 / 63 / 512 = 15.6 rounded down to 15 cylinders. Numbers there are 255 heads, 63 sectors, 512 bytes per sector.
Now, return to main mode and create a new partition:
Expert command (m for help): r
Command (m for help): n
Command action
e extended
p primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4): 1
First cylinder (1-15, default 1): 1
Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (1-15, default 15): 15
Mark it bootable:
Command (m for help): a
Partition number (1-4): 1
And change its type to FAT32:
Command (m for help): t
Selected partition 1
Hex code (type L to list codes): c
Changed system type of partition 1 to c (W95 FAT32 (LBA))
The result is:
Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/sdb: 128 MB, 128450560 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 15 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 15 120456 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
Now, really write configuration to card (until here, card is not changed):
Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!
Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
WARNING: If you have created or modified any DOS 6.x
partitions, please see the fdisk manual page for additional
information.
Syncing disks.
Done! What's left is to format our partition as FAT32 to be mounted and populated:
# mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/sdb1
mkfs.vfat 2.11 (12 Mar 2005)
Note: before running mkfs.vfat (included in the dosfstools package in Debian) make sure /dev/sdb is not mounted.
# mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/tmp
Note: If you use additional mkfs.vfat parameter -n you can give the card a name, e.g. for easier identification (i.e. mkfs.vfat -n omap3 -F 32 /dev/sdb1)
The SD/MMC card is now ready to be used to boot OMAP3 boards.
sfdisk
In order to format same card using sfdisk, one needs to do the following:
# sfdisk -H 255 -S 63 -C 15 /dev/sdb << EOF
> ,,b,*
> EOF
This worked for me, once I used mkcard.sh I deleted the partitions then created a new partition following these steps and now I have a 4.5 Gb boot partition and a 3.0 ext3 Angstrom partition and a 500 Mb swap partition I found that the angstrom only needed about 2.7 to 2.8 Gb or space so that was why I wanted it this way so I could still have a large sdcard when I boot normaly.
I did have to do some math as my sdcard is a 8 GB sdcard not a 128 megs but once i did the math the cyclenders came out to be 966 and then I did everything else like it said make sure to add bootable flag and edit first sector at 63 on the first partition then it works, if you have problems try to change id to option e worked (W95 FAT16 (LBA)) and use mkfs.vfat -F 16 /dev/sdb1 other wise try option c mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/sdb1. I got the fat 32 to work so I am happy