Raspberry PI B+ - Upgrade the bootcode.bin inside a custom rom

pawsius

I have a brand new Pi B+. It boots beautifully with clean install SD Cards with Noobs/Raspian and also Retropie. Absolutely no issues there. But when I download & copy any kind of ROM image at all to the correctly formatted (FAT32) SD card, it boots to the usual rainbow screen with the lightning warning showing in the top right hand side. I have tried 14 different ROM images and all do the same.

Now I know full well that this is being widely reported as an issue with the latest hardware and that it has nothing to do with undervoltage but everything to do with the inclusion of old bootcode.bin and other boot files inside the ROM image, that are not compatible with these revised chipsets. This is discussed in many sticky openings and many users are facing similar issues:

link text

The solutions proposed are very simple - update the linux core with the usual sudo apt-get update and upgrade.

All very well as solution and I have little doubt this works, except totally impossible. I don't have an earlier version Pi on which to performs the updates. I can't update a Pi which is stuck on the boot rainbow with lightning in tow.

I have tried using mac and PC pi emulators to try and access the ROM image to no avail.

I therefore see two only potential solutions, neither of which I have been able to identify in the forums -

1 ) Insert the SD card into a USB port as a secondary storage device and try to upgrade the SD/USB image from the fully bootable Noobs or Raspian....I have no idea how to do that. How do I force an update of the latest boot files with a ROM image in a USB drive that is not the functioning operating system?

OR

Update the necessary bootfiles inside the ROM image (expanded or unexpanded) whilst it is still on the PC. If this is possible, what boot files are required and where do I copy them from??

Help please?

rbaker

@pawsius said in Raspberry PI B+ - Upgrade the bootcode.bin inside a custom rom:

But when I download & copy any kind of ROM image at all

What do you mean by this? You just said that Retropie works perfectly!

jonnykesh

@rbaker

Absolutely no issues there. But when I download & copy any kind of ROM image at all to the correctly formatted (FAT32) SD card, it boots to the usual rainbow screen with the lightning warning showing in the top right hand side. I have tried 14 different ROM images and all do the same.

He means he is trying to use pre-built images which include ROMs and configs etc.
@pawsius If you are having trouble with these images then speak to the makers. They are not supported on this forum.
As an aside, your (OP's) issue is most likely if these things even work, they are built for a Pi 3, not the 3B+ which will only run on Stretch.

rbaker

@pawsius Yeah, you need to check out point 5 on https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first