[SOLVED] First time booting and not working

Nalkozz

Hello there !

On the first boot of my RPI with retropie, everything seemed fine : expanding the filesystem, then the reboot, and then, the screen is showing some errors after some [OK] :

[FAILED] Failed to start Create Volatile Files and Directories.
See 'systemctl status systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service' for details.

then some [OK] things (phew) and :

[FAILED] Failed to start Login service.
See 'systemctl status systemd-logind.service' for details

To be short, here is my screen :
alt text

I don't know what to do, since it's the first boot and I cannot access a terminal for typing some command lines. Here are the specs :
Pi Model: Raspberry Pi 3 Model B
RetroPie Version Used: v3.8.1
Built From: SD Image written withWin32DiskImager on a 64 Gb card formatted in FAT32 with Minitool Partition Wizard
USB Devices connected: Only my standard keyboard

senkun

@Nalkozz said :

formatted in FAT32 with Minitool Partition Wizard

Probably your sdcard. What brand? Try a reformat and reinstall.

I'd use SD Formatter 4.0
https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/index.html

If it fails again, try another sdcard to be sure.

Nalkozz

It's a Toshiba64 Gb Card.

I'll try with SD Formatter, even if it forces the filesystem to be in exFAT with 64Gb cards.
I just saw that the card is partitioned like this: "boot" which is in FAT, "retropie" in EXT4 and a third one without name or even filesystem. Is it normal ?

Thank you for your reply senkun :)

senkun

@Nalkozz

Missed that 64Gb part, SD Formatter first then Minitool Partition Wizard after?
Or try fat32/guiformat?
http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?guiformat.htm

Nalkozz

I tried just minitool, but why not trying SDFormatter then minitool :)
I'll try guiformat too, in case it's not working.
I'll post after all these tests :)

senkun

@Nalkozz said in First time booting and not working:

I tried just minitool, but why not trying SDFormatter then minitool :)
I'll try guiformat too, in case it's not working.
I'll post after all these tests :)

Retropie will not work with exFat. What I normally do for 64Gb sdcards is format with SD Formatter to exFat first, then guiformat to fat32, then install the retropie image on that.

whsiung

If you work from a Windows machine, try this tool:
http://winflashtool.sysprogs.com/download/

Before I discover this tool, I had to use the formatter tool when I need to reflash a SD card that is partitioned with Linux file system. With this tool, however, it can detect and let you select the whole SD card instead of just a partition or volume. In this case you can write an image directly to a SD card WITHOUT the need to format it!

Nalkozz

@senkun
Same thing again, I tried several things, like formatting with SDFormatter then with Minitool, just with Minitool, just with GuiFormat, with SDFormatter then GUIFormat, and each times everything is like before.

@whsiung
I forgot to mention that I work from a Windows machine, my bad :)
I tried to build the SD Card with Apple Pi Baker before, for the same result, so I don't think errors are from the image file.
I tried WinFLASHTool, for the same issues as before.

I managed to grab some pictures of what happened during the first boot :
alt text

I don't know what to do now. I'm considering installing raspbian, then some packets on top of it. Any recommendations?

BuZz

Your SD card is corrupt. If this happens every time you write, it could be

a) Your RetroPie image is corrupt / incomplete (re-download ?)
b) Your card is faulty

BuZz

just to clarify - people are talking about formatting as fat32 etc - the only reason to format would be for a an application or OS that is daft enough to not allow you to write to a drive without it having a driver letter etc. The actual image contains the partition table and partitions. Any existing partitions data will be gone when the image is written.

The tool @whsiung mentioned sounds a bit more intelligent, and so there should be no need to format the sdcard at all.

Nalkozz

@BuZz
Thank you for your answer :)

I don't know if it's the card or the image file. I'll try to re-download the image file and "burn" it with WinFLASHTool. If it doesn't work, I'll try to install a raspbian distro and run the retropie setup script from it. :)

BuZz

That won't help if the card is faulty though. Perhaps you can provide me with the md5sum / name / filesize of the image and I will tell you if it's ok. If so we can rule that out.

Nalkozz

@BuZz
name: retropie-v3.8.1-rpi2_rpi3.img
size: 2,734,375 Ko
MD5Sum: 335fa2eed9f94a9caaf29ac0293ecfa6
I hope my card isn't faulty! D:

BuZz

Checksum is correct. So either it is not being written correctly (somehow), the card is faulty, or the card is just incompatible. First thing would be to try another card.

Nalkozz

I'll see if I find another one in my home. If not, I need to buy a new card tomorrow :/
I'll tell you when the test is ran with another card.

[EDIT]: No more microSD card at home, so I tried to install a raspbian and then the setup script. Raspbian worked well util I expand the filesystem and reboot. The error I got is "not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(179,2)".
I did a surface test on my card to see if all the clusters are ok, and they are, so I don't think the card is corrupted or faulty. Maybe an incompatibility with the raspberry Pi 3 ?
I'll buy a new card tomorrow, maybe just a 32 Gb for testing and why not for mt project, even I wanted a 64 Gb capacity :/

[EDIT AGAIN]: Even if I don't expand the root filesystem, I got the same error on reboot. Definitely need to buy another card for tessting purpose AND for my project.

Btw, thank you very much for your help BuZz !

Nalkozz

Finally, I have a retropie which is working very well !
As expected, that was the card which was faulty.

For information, that was a Toshiba Exceria 64 Gb UHS-I U1 Class 10. I bought a brand new Emtec Gold+ 64 Gb UHS-I U1 Class 10, and everything is working well with it.

Thanks for your help guys! :)

BuZz

If the previous card works ok on the PC and only has problems on the RPI, you should report the problem to https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware - they may be able to give some options to test with (editing config.txt before putting the card in the RPI), and it might help improve compatibility.

Nalkozz

@BuZz
It's a very good idea, I'll make some tests on my pc before, and then report the problem if everything is fine with it. Thank you very much!