Jetson Orin Nano fails to flash to NVMe via SDKManager

[const-volatile]

Hi ,
I’ve been trying to flash my Jetson Orin Nano 8GB Devkit for quite some time now; by following this guide 🚀 Initial Setup Guide - NVIDIA Jetson AI Lab
but it always fails during the final flashing process.

1. I’ve downloaded the Jetpack 5.1 image and flashed to SD card. Then booted successfully from SD and installed the QSPI update (restarted and saw the update complete.
2. Removed the SD card and installed the NVMe drive (1TB) which I formatted as ext4 to prepare (this was advised on the forum here).
3. Got a physical PC with Ubuntu 20.04 (not a VM), downloaded and installed the sdkmanager (and the missing dependency libcanberra-gtk-module).
4. Started the sdkmanager, connected the devkit (shorted the ground and FC Rec pins) lsusb shows Nvidia device and the sdkmanager is able to detect it.
5. Selecting target NVMe and start the installation.
6. On terminal tab there are a multiple log messages with severity error ; until there is a timeout when waiting to boot-up (failed to boot to the initrd kernel). At this time the fan was spinning at least.

SDKM_logs_JetPack_6.1_(rev._1)Linux_for_Jetson_Orin_Nano[8GB_developer_kit_version]_2024-12-29_18-16-08.zip|attachment (204.7 KB)

Unfortunately I do not have the hardware to retrieve serial log at this time; I will try to get it somehow, but I thought to ask at least if someone has an advice to get my setup working in the meantime - with nvme or even sd card at this point - I also tried to flash the 6.1 image to sd card directly and boot from that instead; but it didnt seem to work either (black screen, fan not spinning).

Any ideas or suggestions are highly appreciated - thank you.

[foxsquirrel1]

@const-volatile

Any ideas or suggestions are highly appreciated

Wipe the nvme drive, do not format it.
You have 6.1 logs, must be running 22.04
Delete your download and hw and the .nvxxx.conf that is in your home directory. Remove the config and start over. Do the download first and install later.
Select the top 2 minimal install options.
Sometimes it does hang up, just try it a couple of times. Power cycle with the jumper on.

FYI, it breaks on my workstation for some unknown reason. All of the orin stuff is now on a its own 22.04 dedicated box and sdkmanager and flash work perfectly.

[const-volatile]

Thank you for the suggestions! I’ve tried again using 22.04 (on a different PC) and wiped the nvme before.
It finally worked and I was able to flash the nvme drive.

Thank you!