Installing ROOBI OS | Radxa Docs

[giscus[bot]]

Installing ROOBI OS | Radxa Docs

ROOBI OS will come pre-installed on the machine you purchase, so you usually won't need to install it manually.

https://docs.radxa.com/en/roobi/install-roobi?devices=itx

[tback]

Please give information how to write the image using dd. It's ok if it's brief. Just so that people don't have to use balena etcher.

Like

1. Unpack the image.
2. Then use dd if=<roobi-flasher.img> of=<block-device> bs=1M conv=sync status=progress.

[tangzz-radxa]

Thank you for the suggestion! Adding dd instructions is a reasonable request. We will add a note covering the dd approach to the ROOBI installation guide. The general command would be: xz -d ps006_flasher-v1.1.3.img.xz && dd if=ps006_flasher-v1.1.3.img of=/dev/sdX bs=1M conv=sync status=progress (Replace /dev/sdX with your actual block device.) We will update the docs shortly. Thanks again for the feedback!

[tback]

Thank you!

It seems writing the image worked.
Now I get an error from the flasher though:

ROOBI Flasher for ROCK-5-ITX
It not a block device. Write failed!!!!

The board still wont show anything without the sdcard present.

[tback]

flash.sh tries to write to mmcblk0, but lsblk only lists a 16M device mtdblock0. Might this be an error in the flasher utility?

[tangzz-radxa]

Hi tback,

Sorry to hear you're running into trouble with the ROCK 5 ITX and ROOBI. A couple of things based on the documentation that may help:

About the "It not a block device" error in ROOBI Flasher:

This error means ROOBI Flasher could not see a valid block device (such as the eMMC) at the target you selected. A few common causes:

1. No eMMC is detected. If your board does not have an eMMC module fitted, or the eMMC is not being detected by the RK3588 SoC, ROOBI Flasher will not show a valid write target. Please check that the eMMC is properly seated on the board.
2. Wrong target selected. When you reach the "Select Media" step in ROOBI Flasher, make sure you select the eMMC device (typically something like ), not a file or a non-existent node. The media list should show block devices only.
3. SD card / USB interference. If an SD card is inserted during the ROOBI Flasher process, it may be listed as a target instead of the eMMC. Try removing the SD card before running ROOBI Flasher.

Important note from our docs: ROOBI OS cannot be directly run from a USB flash drive or SD card. ROOBI must be flashed to eMMC. If your board has no eMMC, ROOBI cannot be used on it.

About "no display without SD card":

If ROOBI OS was not successfully flashed to eMMC (which would explain the above error), the board has no bootable OS on eMMC — so without an SD card containing a bootable image, there is indeed nothing to display. This is expected behavior.

Recommended next steps:

1. Verify the ROCK 5 ITX has a functioning eMMC module fitted.
2. Remove any SD card, then retry ROOBI Flasher and confirm the eMMC appears as a selectable block device.
3. If the eMMC still does not appear, you may want to try the traditional dd-based method instead: boot from a Radxa OS SD card image, enable the eMMC overlay, and use to write your desired OS image directly to (see the Boot from SD card to eMMC guide for details).

If the eMMC hardware itself appears to be missing or non-functional, that would be a hardware issue to raise with Radxa support directly.

Hope this helps! Let us know how it goes.

[tangzz-radxa]

Thanks for the additional details — this is very helpful for narrowing down the cause.

Based on your observation, the issue is that the ROOBI Flasher environment cannot see the eMMC as a block device (/dev/mmcblk0). On the ROCK 5 ITX, the on-board eMMC (8 GB, pre-loaded with ROOBI OS from the factory) should appear as /dev/mmcblk0. The fact that only /dev/mtdblock0 (16 MB, the SPI NOR flash holding the bootloader) is visible means the eMMC is not being detected or initialized by the flasher kernel.

Possible causes:

1. eMMC not initialized in the flasher environment — Try waiting longer after boot before running the flher. The eMMC driver may need extra time to enumerate.
2. eMMC hardware issue — If the eMMC module itself is not working, the flasher cannot write to it. In this case, you would need to contact Radxa support for hardware repair/replacement.
3. eMMC needs recovery mode — Some ROCK 5 boards have a dedicated eMMC Recovery button. Check the product hardware illustration to confirm whether the ROCK 5 ITX has a similar recovery mechanism.
4. Damaged or wiped eMMC — If the eMMC was previously erased or corrupted, it may not enumerate correctly without re-initialization at the factory level.

Before running the flasher, you can check what storage devices are visible with:
```bash
lsblk
cat /proc/partitions
dmesg | grep -i mmc
```

If /dev/mmcblk0 does not appear in the output, the eMMC hardware is not being detected by the current kernel.

If the eMMC is confirmed to be non-functional, please contact Radxa after-sales support (support@radxa.com) with your board serial number for further assistance.

[emollusion]

Hi!

I have stumbled upon the same problem as above, and I also tried to use rkdeveloptool, both the one in Aur as well as the one in git, and neither could actually figure out my Radxa ROCK 5 ITC sbc.
The Roobi flashing ended up in the same error.
rkdeveloptool returns a bunch of ... failed!, example:

[...]# ./rkdeveloptool ld
DevNo=1 Vid=0x2207,Pid=0x350b,LocationID=101    Maskrom
[...]# ./rkdeveloptool td
Test Device failed!

Not sure how to continue to resolve this.
Any thoughts or ideas?