MXIII G II S912 TV Box dead internal memory , how do make LibreELEC bootable from SD card only?

norbiyy · August 22, 2018 at 2:48 PM

It seems like the internal memory of my box died so if I flash a S912 LibreELEC img to a SD card it just doesn't boot because I suppose it uses something from the internal memory to boot and mine is dead so it won't boot.

I need a detailed guide on how to make LibreELEC boot from only the SD card itself.

**Iridium** · August 22, 2018 at 7:20 PM Official Post

AFAIK - you have corrupted to bootloader and thus nothing will load. You need to search elsewhere for solutions - it MAY be possible to recover, but this is beyond the scope of this forum. Good luck.

norbiyy · August 22, 2018 at 8:20 PM

I know very little about this things , but I can boot certain things from the sd card.

Some of the things I can boot are TWRP,Armbian and a Le Potato version of CoreELEC which I think has something different than a regular S912 build(bootwise).The Le Potato version works fine until it gets to the CoreELEC logo then it freezes there forever.

If I flash the sd with the Le Potato CoreELEC version, then overwrite with the LibreELEC-S912.arm-8.2.4.1.force.444.10bit files without replacing the dtb file, the box boots does the partition stuff resets itself then stays at the LibreELEC logo forever.

If I replace the dtb file the box still boots but I get a black screen.

If I flash just the LibreELEC-S912.arm-8.2.4.1.force.444.10bit img the box won't boot at all and I get no video from the box.

To be clear I do not want to repair my internal memory because I don't think it is possible without replacing the hardware, I would still try to if anyone has a suggestion but that is not this post's scope.

I intend to make the S912 LibreELEC SD card to boot independently, like other images do.

norbiyy · August 22, 2018 at 8:24 PM

I found this guy who had the same problem but I can't figure out exactly what he did , I would need an in depth guide, step by step because I am very unfamiliar with this sort of stuff

Bricked NAND - how to create a USB bootable SD and LibreELEC on ONE SD?

Broken NAND? Your box is piece of junk? Try this! LibreELEC running from SD only. - FreakTab.com

bubblegum57 · August 22, 2018 at 8:42 PM

I would start here [8.2.2.3] LibreELEC 8.2 for S912

installation instructions are on this page

even though these builds have been discontinued, they were fairly stable,

Basically, download the image, burn to sd card using rufus, then after downloading the correct device tree, based on size of your RAM & LAN speed

you copy the device tree to the root of the sd card, renaming the device tree to dtb.img

then using the pinhole method, reboot, if it boots Libreelec then good, if not try a different device tree, (you can use the same image, just overwrite the device tree)

Of course, you could try Coreelec, which is newer, but Apha or Beta so there are still issues

norbiyy · August 22, 2018 at 9:02 PM

Quote from bubblegum57

I would start here [8.2.2.3] LibreELEC 8.2 for S912

installation instructions are on this page

even though these builds have been discontinued, they were fairly stable,

Basically, download the image, burn to sd card using rufus, then after downloading the correct device tree, based on size of your RAM & LAN speed

you copy the device tree to the root of the sd card, renaming the device tree to dtb.img

then using the pinhole method, reboot, if it boots Libreelec then good, if not try a different device tree, (you can use the same image, just overwrite the device tree)

Of course, you could try Coreelec, which is newer, but Apha or Beta so there are still issues

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I tried doing that , but doing just that would not boot and I get no video no matter which dtb I use(tried them all).

I think that if I do not add something to it so it knows to boot on its own, like the Le Potato version does it won't boot because I think it relies on something embedded within the internal memory of my device which does not work.