Stuck on 'Rainbow Screen'

Slighty

Model: Pi 2 B+
Software: XBMC & Raspiban (post 2016)

So you may remember i am the fella that tried to update the RetroPi, left it overnight to find the SD card is now fried (not detectable/readable in any OS Windows / LINUX - cant format nor Chk Dsk!)

Well it turns out that my wonderful Pi also has gone sideways, I have 3 in total -

1 x RetroPi
1x Raspian
1X XBMC

However i now find that when i put my (working perfectly fine) XBMC or Raspian SD Cards in the "RetroPi" to test it, green light comes on, shows the Rainbow screen immediately and goes no further.

I am on board to the fact that the SD Card may have shafted/burtout when the RetroScript was updating however would the hardware go up the wall too?

Any advice suggestions are welcome and I remain in your debt !!

Cheers in advance

herb_fargus

@Slighty either a corrupted sd card, or insufficient power supply perhaps. There is the off chance there is something wrong with the pi but generally it's the sd card or power supply

Slighty

Sorry to sound amateurish but when you say "Power Supply" do you mean the plug ? or a circuit on the board?

I am at ease with ditching the SD Card (as i say it seems to be unrecoverable due to it not being identifeid/readable by many OS) and buying a new one but i don't like the idea of the Pi going in the bin too.

Is there anything i could do to check the power supply?

herb_fargus

@Slighty yes the power cord. Should be 2A minimum for pi2 and 2.5A for pi 3.

I'd say 90% likely its a corrupted sd. I'd start with that.

Probably very unlikely it's the pi itself.

Slighty

Thank you so much for your help mate.

... again sorry to sound vague but then why doesn't the Pi (that was updatign the Retro PI scripts) now work with 2 readable SD Cards? it just freezes on the rainbow screen

these cards boot up fine in their respective Pi's (I currenty have 3)

obsidianspider

If you have a card that reads just fine on another comparable model Pi, but won't read in this Pi, then it could be the Pi. Are they connected in a similar manner? Did you try using the same known good power supply from the other Pi? Do you have a bunch of "stuff" plugged into the "bad" Pi? I know in my Super Famicom build I have a ton of stuff connected to GPIO that my other "test" Pi doesn't, and some GPIO miswiring was causing it to reboot. I also had a bad USB cable that was causing a short. Try to eliminate variables.

space cadet

I am also getting the rainbow. I'm almost sure it's the sd card that's corrupt. Going to try another sd with retro 4.02 on it. Otherwise power supply or bad connections.

Slighty

Thank you people...great responses.

I will try the other power supply (plug) - in the RetroPi (not working) I only have a Bluetooth dongle - for my joystick, and a Wifi adapter for SSH Roms /Updates plugged into the RetroPi so it shouldn't be overloaded in anyway.

Really gutted about all this as due to work commitment I haven't been on the RetroPi for Months, a pub here in Ireland have one in the corner for customers and I got load of ideas for games i had forgotten about through the years, manged to acquire the ROMs, then decided to update the script...then this ...potentially software AND hardware failure...brutal !!!

You live n learn...

edmaul69

@Slighty what version of raspberry pi's are these three pi's? What version of retropie is on the two good cards?

rbaker

@Slighty You could try to put boot_delay=1 in /boot/config.txt

So put the card in your reader. Under windows, you might see several files - bootcode.bin, kernel.img and config.txt should be one of them. You can open it in wordpad. Just add "boot_delay=1" and save the file.

This has worked for me in the past and the fact that you get the rainbow suggests that some of the card is readable. Maybe the socket for the sd card is not gripping either.

This solution can be found here: http://elinux.org/R-Pi_Troubleshooting#Coloured_splash_screen

Slighty

@edmaul69 I only have Retro on the 1 card, the other 2 have XBMC and Raspian for general coding and 'messing around' (Pi Lite etc) I couldn't give you version numbers sorry, but definitely pre 2016, I haven't upgraded any for a while, if it isn't broke don't fix it etc, the Pi are ALL Pi 2B+.....I have a 3 in the post, as a result of this .

Slighty

@Slighty RBAKER yes I read that mate, good advice but the (RetroPi) SD Card is totally unreadable in any OS I put it in 3 different SD card readers the pc does the 'dur doop' noise to signal new hardware detected but nothing, the best I had was 'removable disk' in Windows Explorer show up and I tried to format only to be told 'F is unreadable' I tried ChkDsk in DOS similar outcome ... All a bit brutal mate, time the SD card met the bin, but I would hope to not have to throw away the Pi too

Slighty

@rbaker yes I read that mate, good advice but the (RetroPi) SD Card is totally unreadable in any OS I put it in 3 different SD card readers the pc does the 'dur doop' noise to signal new hardware detected but nothing, the best I had was 'removable disk' in Windows Explorer show up and I tried to format only to be told 'F is unreadable' I tried ChkDsk in DOS similar outcome ... All a bit brutal mate, time the SD card met the bin, but I would hope to not have to throw away the Pi too