Hello! A recent lightning strike wrecked the Raspberry Pi 3B+ that had served me well for years. I've purchased a new one, but it won't accept the micro-SD from the original Pi. I had archived the micro-SD card image, and a new card with that image won't load either. The green LED flashes 4 times slowly and then 7 times quickly, which from what I read is a mismatch between the boot information on the card and the firmware installed on the new Pi 3B+. I'd rather not rebuild the image from scratch. Is there anything that can be done to allow my archived card image to be modified to run on the new board?
someone will please correct me if there is something else i've missed, but i would write the latest ASL3 appliance image onto the new SD card, then copy the contents of /etc/asterisk and /etc/allmon3 from the old SD card to the new one.
If it's a 3B, then it doesn't have the slow/fast patterns of the 4 and after. Most likely your SD was trashed in the strike as well.
| Flashes | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 3 | start.elf not found |
| 4 | start.elf corrupt |
| 7 | kernel.img not found |
| 8 | SDRAM not recognized (bad image or damaged RAM) |
| Irregular | Normal read/write activity |
I agree with @csylvain to flash a new one, put the old one in a USB-attached reader and try to copy.
Interesting. It actually is doing slow flashes / faster flashes like a Pi 4. Nevertheless, the advice from csylvain is sound. However, I don't have the individual files to copy from. I do have a card image file which I can load onto a card, but in the world of Windows, when looking at the loaded card, I can't see /etc/asterisk and /etc/allmon3. What's the best way to move these files?
Windows by default is unable to read the ext4 (or most) filesystem used by Linux. Sometimes you'll see something out of a card since it has a FAT32 boot partition; but the actual filesystem where your config files are won't.
The old solution was get a linux machine. Second to that, was make a Linux VM.
Apparently, WSL will support mounting ext4 drives: How to Access Linux Ext4 partitions in Windows using WSL (great for reading Raspberry Pi microSD cards) | Tom's Hardware
There are also experimental ext4 drivers for Windows.
The way my brain works, I would spinup a new copy of debian lite on new card and boot the 3B+, then stick the old card in a reader plugged into the 3B+ USB; finally I'd pull the files onto a PC with WinSCP or a Mac with Cyberduck FTP (in SFTP mode). Then spinup your new ASL and send the files in reverse from the PC or Mac. I don't know if that's more or less complex than what NQ4T suggested but it's quick/sequential to my mind.
EDIT: I forget if Trixie is auto-mounting USB drives or not yet; if not, here's mounting instructions: Mounting USB Drives Under Debian – Natural Born Coder
Thinking about this in the other direction, could I just build a new, bootable 3B+ card and then overwrite the boot files on the old card with the boot files from the new card? That's a little easier for me since the boot partition is FAT32 and I can manage that with Windows. Would that work?
Probably not. The thing you really need to do is determine what is actually bad or just start over. If your problem is that the filesystem for the OS is hosed; replacing the boot won't help.
4-7 isn't a blink code I can find as being associated with the Pi3B+...however they do list it as a blink code for generic documentation without specifying a type. That is actually listed as "Power Failure Type B"; which could mean the card itself is shorted.
Have you tried the card in an SD reader of some sort? Does it do anything? Having gone through the lightning-strike game in the past; your only choice might be to flash a new image and reconfigure from fresh.
I have tried the card in an SD reader. It does read properly. My first thought after the lightning strike was that the card was working but scrambled, so I re-flashed it from an image backup I made some time ago. When I first saved that backup image I tested it on the original Pi, and it worked, so I know I've got an OS that worked with the old Pi. So from what I can tell, the card works and I have a viable OS, but it just won't load on the new Pi, possibly because of hardware changes made to the 3B+ through the years. I also flashed a separate card with the current generic Pi OS and it runs correctly in the new Pi, so I know the Pi itself is good.
The "3B+" hasn't undergone any changes that would prevent the original card from booting.
However...that's only if your original board was an actual 3B+. If it was an older 3B non plus; then this is absolutely the problem.
Thanks all. I decided to just start from scratch with the latest Allstar Link version. I thought that would be much more of a hassle than it turned out to be. I built a new card and the new Pi is behaving as it should. I'm almost back online. As it turns out, the lightning strike that roasted the original Pi took out the USB interface as well, so that's being replaced.