[Gta04-owner] Can't boot QtMoko or SHR with current makesd script

[Neil Jerram]

Neil Jerram <neil at ossau.homelinux.net> writes:

>> After this step the GTA04 should boot into LXDE w/o SD card.
>
> Yes, it does, hooray.
>
> And I can now boot my old QtMoko card too.  Great!
>
> Next I'll move on to trying the new QtMoko/SHR card, but I don't have
> time for that right now.

I have re-prepared my new QtMoko/SHR card from scratch like this:

  Command (m for help): p

  Disk /dev/sdb: 15.9 GB, 15931539456 bytes
  64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 15193 cylinders, total 31116288 sectors
  Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
  Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
  I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
  Disk identifier: 0x00000000

     Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
  /dev/sdb1            2048     4196351     2097152   83  Linux
  /dev/sdb2         4196352     8390655     2097152   83  Linux
  /dev/sdb3         8390656    12584959     2097152   83  Linux
  /dev/sdb4        12584960    31116287     9265664    5  Extended
  /dev/sdb5        12587008    31116287     9264640    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)

  # mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb1
  # mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb2
  # mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb3
  # mkfs.vfat /dev/sdb5
  # mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt
  # cd /mnt
  # tar zxvpf ~neil/Downloads/shr-image-om-gta04.tar.gz --numeric-owner
  # umount /mnt
  # mount /dev/sdb2 /mnt
  # cd /mnt
  # tar zxvpf ~neil/Downloads/qtmoko-debian-gta04-v52-armhf.tar.gz
  # umount /mnt

Powering on with this card, I find that the boot system seems to go into
a loop: a repeating cycle of white, yellow, big Tux and blank screens.

If I now press and hold AUX, after a while I see instead a boot menu
screen.  But not the one that I was expecting!  The boot menu that I see
looks like this:

 +--------+   +--------+
 |        |   |        |
 | Mirror |   | Blink  |
 |        |   |  LEDs  |
 +--------+   +--------+
 +--------+   +--------+
 | [tux]  |   |        |
 |        |   |  DVI   |
 |  Boot  |   |        |
 +--------+   +--------+
 +--------+   +--------+
 |        |   |        |
 |  NAND  |   |  MMC   |
 |        |   |        |
 +--------+   +--------+

What can be the explanation of that?  (Given my previous preparation and
apparently successful use of
http://download.goldelico.com/gta04/20121212-GTA04-Production/makesd and
"./flash-nand".)

I noticed this in the flash-nand source code
(http://git.goldelico.com/?p=gta04-rootfs.git;a=blob;f=debian/config/root/flash-nand):

  # DEFAULT="-x -b -k -j" ### we can't write X-Loader yet
  DEFAULT="-k -j"

Could the problem be that there is still something odd sitting in my
X-Loader NAND block?

Could it be that booting my _old_ QtMoko card reinstalled the above old
boot menu?

Thanks,
        Neil