Are recent bootloaders backward compatible?

Robotics & Edge Computing Jetson & Embedded Systems Jetson AGX Orin
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1

My plan for keeping various workspaces is to have an M.2 SSD for each.

The idea is that the bootloader is on the eMMC and I only have to swap the SSD to load another workspace.

But as time goes on, I will install/flash updated JetPack’s on the newer SSDs, which will update the bootloader on the eMMC.

Will the newer bootloaders be backward compatible with the older SSDs workspaces ?

For now I noted that an SSD for which SDK Manager installed/flashed JetPack 6.1 is still compatible with the eMMC updated bootloader when I installed/flashed JetPack 6.2 on another SSD.

2

Hi,
If the device cannot be flashed/booted, please refer to the page to get uart log from the device:
Jetson/General debug - eLinux.org
And get logs of host PC and Jetson device for reference. If you are using custom board, you can compare uart log of developer kit and custom board to get more information.
Also please check FAQs:
Jetson AGX Orin FAQ
If possible, we would suggest follow quick start in developer guide to re-flash the system:
Quick Start — NVIDIA Jetson Linux Developer Guide 1 documentation
And see if the issue still persists on a clean-flashed system.
Thanks!

3

I wanted to report you to the moderators, but unfortunately you are one of them.

7

Hi,
The bootloader partition is in QSPI and you can flash it once. And then swap NVMe SSD to have different rootfs.

8

But, my question ??

9

Hi,

The bootloader is in QSPI partition, not in eMMc.

When you use sdk manager to flash JP6.2, it will update the qspi to JP6.2, which means bootloader version is JP6.2.
In theory bootloader is backward compatible, but we dont verify this case.

Thanks

10

Thanks for the reply.

If the bootloader is not on eMMC, why installing to the M.2 SSD with SDK Manager erased my previous eMMC content ?

11

Hi

It might be the sdk manager default behavior.
If you save the sdk manager log, could you share with us to review?

Thanks

12

Maybe next month.

So as I understand, selecting the target installation support as M.2 SSD and getting the eMMC erased in the meantime is a bug ?

13

Hi,
If your command is to flash QSPI + rootfs to NVMe SSD, and eMMC is touched, it is supposed to be a bug. One possible reason is you run the command which flashes QSPI + rootfs to eMMC. You may refer to the initrd commands:

Flashing Support — NVIDIA Jetson Linux Developer Guide

14

I don’t run a command but select the device to flash in SDK Manager.

I prefer to keep using SDK Manager to have colleagues do the procedure quietly.

15

Hi,
SDKManager will do clean re-flash. For further use-cases such as keeping some partitions, would suggest check developer guide and run the commands manually.

17

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