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I just spent a few hours fiddling with my new pi4 yesterday. Is it possible to get them to boot from USB without first setting it up to boot from SD and then cl

I just spent a few hours fiddling with my new pi4 yesterday. Is it possible to get them to boot from USB without first setting it up to boot from SD and then cloning the disk? I'm guessing not since I think it has to flash some settings to the EEPROM, not just make changes to /boot. I was following this guide and couldn't even get these steps to work: https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/boot-raspberry-pi-4-usb https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/boot-raspberry-pi-4-usb

magicalhippo 6y ago
It seems they recently changed[1] the default boot order to SD Card followed by USB Mass Storage, from just SD Card. Of course if you get an Raspberry Pi made before this became the default then you're SOL. [1]: https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/bcm2711_bootloader_config.md https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberry...
- anderspitman 6y ago
  Are those settings in hardware, or the EEPROM?
  - magicalhippo 6y ago
    This is the EEPROM settings.
    - anderspitman 6y ago
      But once I figure out how to properly flash it, I should be able to boot from a freshly created USB drive, without having to clone from SD?
      - magicalhippo 6y ago
        Yes exactly, the EEPROM stores the settings rather than the config.txt file on the SD Card as with earlier Pi's.
ptx 6y ago
I think all I had to do to get it working, now that the USB boot feature is out of beta, was to boot Raspberry Pi OS from an SD card and do a normal "apt upgrade". This automatically downloads and updates the firmware[1]. After that (and possibly rebooting?) I could run raspi-config and enable USB boot[2] there. [1] https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/booteeprom.md https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberry... [2] https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/raspi-config.md https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/rasp...
- anderspitman 6y ago
  But that still requires an SD card to bootstrap the process...
  - ptx 6y ago
    Yes, once, during setup. But you need to run raspi-config anyway to change the settings, so you need to boot into Raspberry Pi OS somehow even if you're going to be installing something else on the USB drive.
    - anderspitman 6y ago
      I'm fine running rpi OS, but it would be nice to be able to boot straight into USB without having to do SD first.
MarkusWandel 6y ago
The Pi 400 is new enough to have USB boot already in it. At least mine did; the boot loader version was considerably newer than what is needed. Just dump the OS image onto a USB stick or an external hard disk, it'll boot.
- incanus77 6y ago
  Awesome, confirmed! I've had mine for a week and didn't think to try this.

magicalhippo 6y ago

It seems they recently changed[1] the default boot order to SD Card followed by USB Mass Storage, from just SD Card. Of course if you get an Raspberry Pi made before this became the default then you're SOL. [1]: https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/bcm2711_bootloader_config.md https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberry...

anderspitman 6y ago
Are those settings in hardware, or the EEPROM?
- magicalhippo 6y ago
  This is the EEPROM settings.
  - anderspitman 6y ago
    But once I figure out how to properly flash it, I should be able to boot from a freshly created USB drive, without having to clone from SD?
    - magicalhippo 6y ago
      Yes exactly, the EEPROM stores the settings rather than the config.txt file on the SD Card as with earlier Pi's.

ptx 6y ago

I think all I had to do to get it working, now that the USB boot feature is out of beta, was to boot Raspberry Pi OS from an SD card and do a normal "apt upgrade". This automatically downloads and updates the firmware[1]. After that (and possibly rebooting?) I could run raspi-config and enable USB boot[2] there. [1] https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/booteeprom.md https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberry... [2] https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/raspi-config.md https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/rasp...

anderspitman 6y ago
But that still requires an SD card to bootstrap the process...
- ptx 6y ago
  Yes, once, during setup. But you need to run raspi-config anyway to change the settings, so you need to boot into Raspberry Pi OS somehow even if you're going to be installing something else on the USB drive.
  - anderspitman 6y ago
    I'm fine running rpi OS, but it would be nice to be able to boot straight into USB without having to do SD first.

MarkusWandel 6y ago

The Pi 400 is new enough to have USB boot already in it. At least mine did; the boot loader version was considerably newer than what is needed. Just dump the OS image onto a USB stick or an external hard disk, it'll boot.

incanus77 6y ago
Awesome, confirmed! I've had mine for a week and didn't think to try this.