Is there really a space in “/ dev / sda 1”? I assume this was written this way due to forum interfering with this, though highlighting the code and clicking on the icon in the “Add Reply” (at upper right tool bar) “</>” would get around that.
I have not tried booting with USB SATA, in theory it would work if the Linux side stays at USB2 when it transfers from U-Boot to the Linux kernel. If the root partition runs on a USB controller which has to reset during transfer from U-Boot to kernel it would cause the partition to be lost. So while you are in a normal boot, and you run “lsusb -t”, how does the speed of the root_hub show? Is it 480M or 5000M? If 5000M this would cause a failure since U-Boot runs at 480M speed.