Is this a Raspberry Pi problem or SD card problem?

[shrewdgamer]

I was having trouble getting Pi to boot, I ran fsck on SD card but the results came clean, so I decided to re-image the SD card Raspbian Stretch Full image, without formatting the SD card, I wrote the Raspbian image to the SD card using the instructions here: https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentati ... s/linux.md

But even with the newly imaged SD card, I'm show the error -110 unable to initialize card.

Is this a Raspberry Pi problem or SD card problem?

[HawaiianPi]

Could be a card problem or a problem with your card reader.

Try the SD Memory Card Formatter from the SD association, or use Disk Management to remove all partitions and re-initialize the card as a simple volume.

[shrewdgamer]

Could be a card problem or a problem with your card reader.

Try the SD Memory Card Formatter from the SD association, or use Disk Management to remove all partitions and re-initialize the card as a simple volume.

I tried this through at least two ways,

1. Through USB card reader
2. USB hub's card reader.

With both I got the same problem.

I haven't yet tried what you suggested in your post. It seems to be available only for Windows.

[Joel_Mckay]

Reformat as HawaiianPi says, try a newer usb-to-microsd card adapter, and finally scan the card for storage defects.

Even a full reformat will not catch looping-write firmware counterfeits, or flash cells with amnesia after the internal card cache expires.
We use AltraMayor's f3 (Fight Flash Fraud) if a card starts to behave weird... it may not tell you specifically why the card is broken, but will tell you there is actually a hardware problem.
How to scan a sdcard from linux: http://www.micrometer.xyz/cdn/node/78

In general, a bad card can cause unexpected hangs, kernel panics, corrupted write-errors, and screens of fsck logged problems.

[HawaiianPi]

There is software for checking flash memory devices here: https://fight-flash-fraud.readthedocs.io/en/stable/

[shrewdgamer]

Here are the results of F3write/F3read test:

Code: Select all

                  SECTORS      ok/corrupted/changed/overwritten
Validating file 1.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 2.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 3.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 4.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 5.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 6.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 7.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 8.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 9.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 10.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 11.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 12.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 13.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 14.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 15.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 16.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 17.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 18.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 19.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 20.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 21.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 22.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 23.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 24.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 25.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 26.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 27.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 28.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 29.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 30.h2w ... 1096832/        0/      0/      0

  Data OK: 29.52 GB (61914240 sectors)
Data LOST: 0.00 Byte (0 sectors)
               Corrupted: 0.00 Byte (0 sectors)
        Slightly changed: 0.00 Byte (0 sectors)
             Overwritten: 0.00 Byte (0 sectors)
Average reading speed: 21.71 MB/s

It seems like this is clearly Raspberry Pi's problem, it is damaging SD cards.

If this was the problem of the card reader, it shouldn't have worked the first time I wrote Raspbian with it, but it worked, only after I inserted it into Raspberry Pi and after few power cuts this problem started.

[fruitoftheloom]

Here are the results of F3write/F3read test:

Code: Select all

                  SECTORS      ok/corrupted/changed/overwritten
Validating file 1.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 2.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 3.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 4.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 5.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 6.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 7.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 8.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 9.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 10.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 11.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 12.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 13.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 14.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 15.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 16.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 17.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 18.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 19.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 20.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 21.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 22.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 23.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 24.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 25.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 26.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 27.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 28.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 29.h2w ... 2097152/        0/      0/      0
Validating file 30.h2w ... 1096832/        0/      0/      0

  Data OK: 29.52 GB (61914240 sectors)
Data LOST: 0.00 Byte (0 sectors)
               Corrupted: 0.00 Byte (0 sectors)
        Slightly changed: 0.00 Byte (0 sectors)
             Overwritten: 0.00 Byte (0 sectors)
Average reading speed: 21.71 MB/s

It seems like this is clearly Raspberry Pi's problem, it is damaging SD cards.

If this was the problem of the card reader, it shouldn't have worked the first time I wrote Raspbian with it, but it worked, only after I inserted it into Raspberry Pi and after few power cuts this problem started.

Cutting power without safe shutdown can corrupt data on the SD Card, it is well documented,. If you have constant power cuts you should invest in a UPS.

[shrewdgamer]

Cutting power without safe shutdown can corrupt data on the SD Card, it is well documented,. If you have constant power cuts you should invest in a UPS.

But now the Raspberry Pi is having trouble even with a newly imaged SD card.

[HawaiianPi]

Which model Pi, and what are you using for a power supply?

[shrewdgamer]

Which model Pi, and what are you using for a power supply?

Raspberry Pi 3B+ with official power supply.

[HawaiianPi]

Anything else attached to the Pi 3B+ (USB, GPIO)?

Are you making any changes to Raspbian?

Are you using Etcher or dd to write the image?

Have you verified the SHA256 checksum of the downloaded image?

Can you check the 3.3V output on the GPIO expansion header?

• Make absolutely SURE you do not short the 3.3V probe to the nearby 5V pins (that will instantly kill your Pi).

pi3_gpio.jpg (88.86 KiB) Viewed 2357 times

[shrewdgamer]

Anything else attached to the Pi 3B+ (USB, GPIO)?

Are you making any changes to Raspbian?

Are you using Etcher or dd to write the image?

Have you verified the SHA256 checksum of the downloaded image?

Can you check the 3.3V output on the GPIO expansion header?

• Make absolutely SURE you do not short the 3.3V probe to the nearby 5V pins (that will instantly kill your Pi).

Except for keyboard, mouse and monitor, nothing is attached to Pi 3B+. Hoping to run it without those things connected with just a USB HDD.

I'm not making any changes to Raspbian.

I'm using dd to write the image.

No I haven't checked the SHA256 checksum, it is the same which I used to write earlier.

I don't have the tools to check 3.3V.

[HawaiianPi]

Try using Etcher to write the card directly from the downloaded Raspbian image .zip file (do not extract the image first).
https://www.balena.io/etcher/

Etcher will extract the image while writing, and verify that the card has been written correctly.