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How to boot an OS from USB Flash Drive

You can boot an OS from USB Flash Drive by following the steps below. Here we change the boot order to USB Boot > eMMC Boot, which means, if the USB Boot fails, it will boot from eMMC.

caution

You will have to use Ubuntu or MacOS as host PC for this method.

  • Step 1. Remove the 4 rubber covers and open the reTerminal back shell unscrewing the 4 screws underneath

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  • Step 2. Remove the 2 screws to disassemble the heatsink and also the remaining 4 screws to take apart the entire case

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  • Step 3. Flip down the boot mode switch according to the below diagram

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  • Step 4. Open a Terminal window inside the Host PC after connecting to reTerminal and type the following to update the packages list
sudo apt update
  • Step 5. Install Git by the following command
sudo apt install git
  • Step 6. Git might produce an error if the date is not set properly. Type the following to correct this
sudo date MMDDhhmm

NOTE: Where MM is the month, DD is the date, and hh and mm are hours and minutes respectively.

  • Step 7. Clone and enter the usbboot tool repository
git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/raspberrypi/usbboot
cd usbboot
  • Step 8. Enter the following to install libusb
sudo apt install libusb-1.0-0-dev
  • Step 9. Build and install the usbboot tool
make
  • Step 10. Open the bootloader configuration file
sudo nano recovery/boot.conf
  • Step 11. Change the BOOT_ORDER field to the following
BOOT_ORDER=0xf15

Please note that the default of reTerminal is different from the cloned recovery/boot.conf. The defaults for reTerminal are as follows. Please rewrite recovery/boot.conf as necessary.

[all]
BOOT_UART=0
WAKE_ON_GPIO=0
POWER_OFF_ON_HALT=1

# Try  SD- > USB PCIe MSD -> USB 2.0 BCM XHCI -> Network ->  Loop
BOOT_ORDER=0xf2541

# Set to 0 to prevent bootloader updates from USB/Network boot
# For remote units EEPROM hardware write protection should be used.
ENABLE_SELF_UPDATE=1

NOTE: Here if USB Boot fails, it switches to eMMC boot

  • Step 12. Run the following to update the EEPROM image
cd recovery
./update-pieeprom.sh

The pieeprom.bin file is now ready to be flashed to the Compute Module 4

  • Step 13. Navigate back to the usbboot directory
cd ..
  • Step 14. Run the usbboot tool to flash the bootloader EEPROM
sudo ./rpiboot -d recovery
  • Step 15. Connect reTerminal to the PC via USB Type-C cable

Now it will take a few seconds to transfer the necessary files to the reTerminal.

  • Step 16. Turn off reTerminal, flip the Boot Mode switch back to the original position and assemble the reTerminal shell

  • Step 17. Connect a bootable USB Flash Drive with a suitable OS inside, connect to one of the USB Ports on the reTerminal and turn on reTerminal

Now you will see reTerminal booting from the connected USB Drive

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