Trying to install LE 11.0.3 on SSD Drive using the installer

    Hi All,

    I decided to start a new thread in regards to setting up LE on my RPi4. After working out all the kinks, I finally got it to work on the 128 GB MicroSD card. However, I just purchased a Samsung 870 EVO 5000 GB SSD and I ran the LibreELEC.USB-SD.Creator.Win32 after formatting the drive using exFAT from Windows Computer Management module. The issue I have is that the installer is not seeing the 500GB SSD drive, so I am not sure what I am doing wrong here. I would appreciate it if someone can guide me in the right direction.

    Regards,

    Shedrock

    I kept trying to install LE but nothing seemed to work until at one reboot I got the RPi bot menu that asked me to connect a network cable, which I did. It then gave me options to install an OS, to which I selected my own on a flash drive with the LibreELEC-RPi4.arm-11.0.3.img on it. It installed it to the SSD drive but the following screen is where it' stuck at right now.

    Regards,

    Shedrock

    Well, after hours and hours of trying, I did manage to get LE to work on the SSD drive, but it keeps failing at different times. If I copy files from my PC over to the addon folder, it stall, I get errors and the RPi reboots, freezes, or sometimes it says that it is beyond repairs (or similar message). I installed LE on the SSD driver over 7 times, and every time it fails at some point or the other. I eventually gave up and installed it on a Sandisk 128 GB MicroSD using the latest Nexus release, but it is very slow compared to my existing older ZBOX. I then installed LE 10.0.4 which is a bit faster than 11.03 but it gets stuck in a loop for over 10 times before booting to the LE interface, and also locks up and sometimes it just reboots. It has been a horrible and frustrating experience thus far. And as for the SSD drive. I did try 3 different brands, Samsung, Sandisk and Kingston, and they all fail. I don't think the SATA adapter is the issue either, because I tried 2 costly brands and same problems.

    Sorry for the multiple posts. Maybe someone can offer some advise.

    Thanks,

    Shedrock

    Good morning
    I format the SD card, USB stick or ... under Windows in NTFS and so far the "LibreELEC.USB-SD.Creator.Win32" version 1.4 tool has always recognized everything

    no matter whether LE 11 or Nightly 12
    (translated with Google)
    greetings

    Edited once, last by johnny depp (October 8, 2023 at 8:21 AM).

    As noted by johnny depp the installer app should be able to see the USB drive under Windows to write the LE image directly to the SSD. RPi images do not boot into an installer where you pick the install target (as in the Generic image).

    Does the SSD have it's own PSU or are you trying to power the SSD from the board? .. and what PSU is being used?. Note that USB booting has a much higher current draw on the board than SD card and will need something like the official Raspberry Pi PSU that's rated for (and will actually give) 5V/3A to avoid power brown-out issues; which from the description of boot failures and reboots is my guess/hunch on the problem. You might also need config.txt changes to boost power on the USB ports and some USB drives still suck enough current to need their own independent PSU. For kicks, you can also boot an LE12 nightly from SD card and ensure any available firmware updates have been applied (via updates in LE settings).

    If this all sounds fiddly, please remember the board was designed to boot easily from SD card (and that bit works easily and as advertised). If you want to go off-piste with more exotic boot scenarios it's not quite as straightforward.

    Quote from shedrock

    Well, after hours and hours of trying, I did manage to get LE to work on the SSD drive, but it keeps failing at different times. If I copy files from my PC over to the addon folder, it stall, I get errors and the RPi reboots, freezes, or sometimes it says that it is beyond repairs (or similar message). I installed LE on the SSD driver over 7 times, and every time it fails at some point or the other. I eventually gave up and installed it on a Sandisk 128 GB MicroSD using the latest Nexus release, but it is very slow compared to my existing older ZBOX. I then installed LE 10.0.4 which is a bit faster than 11.03 but it gets stuck in a loop for over 10 times before booting to the LE interface, and also locks up and sometimes it just reboots. It has been a horrible and frustrating experience thus far. And as for the SSD drive. I did try 3 different brands, Samsung, Sandisk and Kingston, and they all fail. I don't think the SATA adapter is the issue either, because I tried 2 costly brands and same problems.

    Sorry for the multiple posts. Maybe someone can offer some advise.

    Thanks,

    Shedrock

    I did suggest in an earlier post that you first test your hardware on RPI OS to rule out any hardware issues and that includes flaky power supplies. It’s up to you what you do but until your rule out hardware issues first you’ll be back here many times looking for solutions.

    Quote from shedrock

    I don't think the SATA adapter is the issue either, because I tried 2 costly brands and same problems.

    Ruling out the adapter may have been premature. They seem to be hit-and-miss, there are tons of reports on the RPi forums of various issues with lots of adapters.

    Run 'lsusb', note the vendor and product IDs (the 1234:5678 number) and search for that on the RPi forums https://forums.raspberrypi.com

    Also note that there are some adapters with different internal revisions and the same ID around, some revs will work and some others won't but you can't easily tell that just from the ID numbers. Yes, it's all a mess.

    so long,

    Hias

    Quote from chewitt

    Does the SSD have it's own PSU or are you trying to power the SSD from the board? .. and what PSU is being used?. Note that USB booting has a much higher current draw on the board than SD card and will need something like the official Raspberry Pi PSU that's rated for (and will actually give) 5V/3A to avoid power brown-out issues; which from the description of boot failures and reboots is my guess/hunch on the problem. You might also need config.txt changes to boost power on the USB ports and some USB drives still suck enough current to need their own independent PSU. For kicks, you can also boot an LE12 nightly from SD card and ensure any available firmware updates have been applied (via updates in LE settings).

    The SSD drive does not have its own PSU. I read on a few threads that the RPi4 had sufficient power to run it, so I assumed that everything was going to be fine. I do however agree that this may be a power issue. Although, it still doesn't explain why LE fails at some point on the MicroSD cards as well. I will pickup a PSU for the SSD drive and see if that sorts things out.

    Thanks for the advice. Much appreciated.

    Shedrock

    Quote from johnny depp

    Good morning
    I format the SD card, USB stick or ... under Windows in NTFS and so far the "LibreELEC.USB-SD.Creator.Win32" version 1.4 tool has always recognized everything

    no matter whether LE 11 or Nightly 12
    (translated with Google)
    greetings

    Here is a pic of the drive formatted in NTFS and not being discovered in the selection drop-down menu in the LE creator.

    Shedrock

    Quote from HiassofT

    Ruling out the adapter may have been premature. They seem to be hit-and-miss, there are tons of reports on the RPi forums of various issues with lots of adapters.

    Run 'lsusb', note the vendor and product IDs (the 1234:5678 number) and search for that on the RPi forums https://forums.raspberrypi.com

    Also note that there are some adapters with different internal revisions and the same ID around, some revs will work and some others won't but you can't easily tell that just from the ID numbers. Yes, it's all a mess.

    so long,

    Hias

    I purchased an official RPi PSU.

    Shedrock

    Edited 2 times, last by shedrock: Merged a post created by shedrock into this post. (October 8, 2023 at 1:37 PM).

    UPDATE: I tried switching the SSD to USB2 but that did not do anything. What I decided to do was to take an old SSD drive power supply, modded it and plugged in the drive. I then installed LibreELEC-RPi4.arm-11.0.3 and it installed faster and booted up faster as well. It is however much, much slower than my ZBOX -ID88, and that's saying something, considering that it's over 11 years old.

    Anyway, moving the same files across the network to the addons/addon_data folder worked well with no lockups. I managed to add over 3900 Movies, but this is very slow, even with NFO files, compared to the above mentioned ZBOX. The RPi4 does occasionally reboot when I click on some of the Movie folders, when I was adding them. Overall, I don't see how this can be a very functional piece of hardware, even for hobby enthusiast. If you were just plugging this into your TV directly to watch a few movies a week, then maybe this may be sufficient. However, I am not impressed with the speed at all, and my Samsung 870 EVO 500GB drive should be sufficient, so I am assuming the RPi4 is not as fast as I imagined.

    Also, a few posts up, someone mentioned that they can install LE from the LE creator on an external SSD drive. Well, I am yet to figure out how this is at all possible, considering that I can install it on a 16GB, 32GB, and even 128GB drives without any issues. I also tried 7 different PC's/Laptops and not one of them can install it on the 500GB SSD drive. I am not sure if this is a limitation of the LibreELEC.USB-SD.Creator.Win32software, but it does not work for me.

    Thank you to everyone who helped me with this project and bearing with my lack of knowledge with the RPi hardware. I think I may have to invest in an Intel NUC or similar to accomplish a reliable and more stable media center, using LE of course. :)

    Regards,

    Shedrock

    As you didn't post any debug logs yet it's really hard to tell what's causing your issues (sorry, my crystal ball is still on repair).

    A few hints though: you can easily check if your RPi is suffering from under-power issues with vcgencmd get_throttled - insufficient power supply by using random phone chargers etc is still the number one cause of "this damn thing doesn't work reliably".

    If you connect some external peripherals like SSDs also have a look at their power ratings. I don't have an EVO 870 laying around on a shelf but the 500 GB EVO 850 I found in the spare box mentions "5V 1.4A" on it's label. Now keep in mind the RPi4 will at maximum deliver 1.2A (together!) on all USB ports and do the math. Even if you don't have an USB keyboard plugged in it won't be enough (and your USB->SATA adapter will need some power, too).

    Some 250GB Micron and Sandisk SSDs I found in the box even need 1.6 or 1.7 amps.

    Long story short: don't use any scrap parts you find somewhere in a drawer and assume they will just work although the specs say otherwise. Would you expect an RTX 4090 to work reliably in some ancient PC with a 200W PS? Certainly not, and you can't blame the PC for that.

    so long,

    Hias

    Quote from HiassofT

    don't use any scrap parts

    Well, I used official RPi 3A power supply and without addidtional PSU my 500 GB ADATA SSD worked only on USB2 socket, while it was not recognized on USB3 sockets, so after all I'm good, but perhaps I had just some luck here.

    RPi5 seems to have more power juice on USB sockets, this is might be another reason to wait for it.

    I am well aware that I did not post any debug logs. You apparently missed, or did not read my entire post. You cannot assume that because I put random parts together and just magically expected it to work. I used a 12v power supply that powers a WD 4TB external HD, The enclosure is a Sony enclosure that a few years ago I removed it from the casing. I used common sense and figured that if it can power a 3.5" WD SATA drive, then power was not the issue.

    As I stated before, the RPi4 is using the official PSU. This RPi4 is sufficiently powered, as so is the SSD 870 Evo drive. I also tested it with a Sandisk 3D 250GB drive, a Kingston 500GB drive, and they all worked. In my previous posts, I mentioned all the issues I encountered, but in my last post, I clearly stated that it actually worked with the external power supply connected to the SSD enclosure, as well as the random rebooting. Why did you assume that I was not going to post a log file? Sarcasm was certainly not warranted here. I've been just posting here so that I can give updates on my progress, or lack thereof. I am sorry I did not meet your requirements for a proper post, or not posting a log file. It is also very, very hard to post a log file when the entire system crashes, won't start, and then you have to start from scratch over 14 times in the last 2 days.

    Now that I have it working, I will be posting a log file tomorrow to see if someone can assist me in figuring out the random reboots, and lock ups. My comment in regards to getting another system for my media center does not, or should not indicate that I was not going to keep trying to get this thing up and running. Again, sorry if you misunderstood my post, or took it the wrong way. That was clearly not my intention.

    Regards,

    Shedrock

    Edited once, last by shedrock (October 9, 2023 at 3:11 AM).

    I have 4 Pi4's (2, 4 & 8GB versions) running LE12 on external SSD, none of them are slow , i prefer them over my Shield Pro 2019 and my m-itx with i5 10400.

    shedrock again I did suggest setting up your RPI4 and SSD on RPI OS first to do all the testing with the built in tools provided. It appears you are cherry picking suggestions made by users here and coming back moaning about the RPI4 without properly testing it.

    You were asked to provide a full log and instead decided to have a pop off HiassofT who incidentally is an actual developer, when he points this out to you. You’re not exactly warming yourself to the user base here.

    I suggest you follow the advice here from users who have already been through the process and have proven that the RPI4 is more than capable of running LE no matter what is thrown at it.

    Quote from petediscrete

    You were asked to provide a full log and instead decided to have a pop off HiassofT who incidentally is an actual developer, when he points this out to you. You’re not exactly warming yourself to the user base here.

    No, you're assuming that I am trying to have a pop off with him. I am extremely appreciative for the help I receive on these forums. However, sarcasm is not warranted. Not because I need assistance means I should just blow over comments made, when in fact it is uncalled for. Having said that, why are you assuming that I am cherry picking suggestions posted here? I've apologized for a mistake regarding a post higher up in this thread, so I don't need to be chastised for it. I have followed every single bit of advice given to me thus far. Please refer me to the advice I am yet to follow.

    Now, regarding the log file. As previously mentioned, I cannot provide something that did not exist (repeating myself). The RPi4 crashed multiple times, and by crash I mean that it was inoperable to the point that it required me to reinstall LE over and over again. How would you suggest that I grab a log when the log file is from a fresh install? Now, as previously stated, I can provide a log-file because I actually have it running. I am not trying to be difficult, but it appears that maybe my posts are not being completely read, or I am not explaining myself properly. Either way, I am not here to annoy, irritate or argue with anyone. I sincerely appreciate everything the community does, and continues to do, and that includes the work of the main developers. I take none of these things for granted.

    Regards,

    Shedrock

    Edited once, last by shedrock (October 9, 2023 at 1:39 PM).