Antminer S2 SD card recovery

[Questionator]

Hello fellow miners,

I have a semi dead S2, i think it's the SD card.
First I removed the date from the filename to get "initramfs.bin.SD" than I tried to write the firmware from Bitmaintech on it with Win32 disk imager.
It writes for a few seconds but after that the S2 still does nothing with the card.
I even tried the image from |1|1|? but still nothing.
After writing i can't open the sd in windows, not with the original or the other from that |1|1| guy.
Before i could just read it and see the files on it???
Help?

[Questionator]

Ok now i'm sure it has something to do with the SD card or the IO-board.
I started the damn thing and after a few seconds i pushed the sd card in the socket.
And boom it booted
So i had to power it off and put the lid on it and now i'm back from where i started 

[DiCE1904]

Did you ever get this figured out?

My S2 was working great for a week, had to power down to move some cables. Then when I turned it on, all I get is fans going and the blue screen. No connection to my network or anything.

[DiCE1904]

I just took a look at this Questionator,

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=515448.msg6315538#msg6315538

Ill give it a shot in the morning and post back

[DiCE1904]

Just tried a fesh micro sd card with 1l1l11ll1l 's image and still no luck.

Fans spinning full speed and just a blue screen. Not showing up on network

**Maybe my micro SD card adaptor was locked and didn't take the image, tapped the lock down to the correct position and trying again

*** Locked adaptor was the problem. Hashing fine now. Thanks to 1l1l11ll1l and RaskaRuby

[BeZerKaNZ]

Did you ever get this figured out?

My S2 was working great for a week, had to power down to move some cables. Then when I turned it on, all I get is fans going and the blue screen. No connection to my network or anything.

Im having the exact same problem, Red lights on the BB Board and IO. LCD screen is blank. Tried to get Bitmain involved but they seem to disappear when it comes time for a resolution.

Tried SD recover but it made no difference.

I will post something if I find a resolution.

[GWilkiejr]

Any updates on this?  I have the same issue.  S2 powers up but nothing else.  Blank LCD screen. 

[bolehvpn]

Posted this in two other threads but I am posting this here in case anyone has this problem. I spent more than 6 hours troubleshooting this.

Two of my Antminer S2s had the same issue and I believe it's the SD card inside the Beagleboard that they're using which is a 4 gb Kingston (I'm not sure if it's genuine since their write rate is incredibly slow at 4 mB/sec).

Symptoms
Antminer S2 will not retain settings, reset after reboot.
Or Antminer Blue screen when starting up.

Things Tried But Did not Work

• Reseating all boards and checking cables
• Resetting to factory defaults
• Flashing a brand new image via the web gui
• Flashing the SD card with a brand new image via a disk imager
• Scandisk of the SD card (no errors reported)

Solution

I tried with a new SD card 2 gb that I had lying about and flashed it with an image I found somewhere on the forum here (i can't remember where now but the guy had a lot |1|1|1| in his nick name ). Note this is not a normal flash via the GUI but it's a full sd card flash.

Step 1: Removing the beagle board and the SD card:

Remove the control board (the one in the middle) and you should see a micro sd card slot. Press on it and it will pop up.

Step 2: Changing to a new SD card

Download the official image they recommended for a 4 gb (link provided by BitMainTech) via a support e-mail

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9mK2-whJv8cU0Q5R1hIQTJnRVU/

Put it into a sd card reader and use the below app to flash the img to the NEW sd card (don't use the same one).
http://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/

Replace it the sd card and remount it inside. Give it a go!

If this helped you!
14G2KWbGZkV6TCzdXes4HQJA4Gt5jpAmVP

[thecr4ne]

Just tried a fesh micro sd card with 1l1l11ll1l 's image and still no luck.

Fans spinning full speed and just a blue screen. Not showing up on network

**Maybe my micro SD card adaptor was locked and didn't take the image, tapped the lock down to the correct position and trying again

*** Locked adaptor was the problem. Hashing fine now. Thanks to 1l1l11ll1l and RaskaRuby

Did you format the card before writing the image to it? If so what file system did you use? If not, was it already formatted and if so what file system?

I'm having the same issue. No Network connectivity, blank display, no front LEDs, backplane LEDs all red. I tried what SD cards I had on hand with no luck. I've ordered a brand new Class 10 4GB.
Thanks.

[DiCE1904]

Just tried a fesh micro sd card with 1l1l11ll1l 's image and still no luck.

Fans spinning full speed and just a blue screen. Not showing up on network

**Maybe my micro SD card adaptor was locked and didn't take the image, tapped the lock down to the correct position and trying again

*** Locked adaptor was the problem. Hashing fine now. Thanks to 1l1l11ll1l and RaskaRuby

Did you format the card before writing the image to it? If so what file system did you use? If not, was it already formatted and if so what file system?

I'm having the same issue. No Network connectivity, blank display, no front LEDs, backplane LEDs all red. I tried what SD cards I had on hand with no luck. I've ordered a brand new Class 10 4GB.
Thanks.

Im on a mac and I either use AppliePi baker or SDformatter, can't remember 

It was just flash the image over on the new card I bought from best buy with one of those programs

[CEXIO123]

I'm might be having the same problem.  One of my S2 Antminers loses all saved settings after every reboot/power cycle.  After every reboot it loads the default settings.  I've purchased a new card, flashed it and still no luck.  I've reseated all boards.   Any suggestions?

[bolehvpn]

There is a new firmware out that may resolve this issue:

https://bitmaintech.com/files/download/initramfs.bin.SD-20140619.tar
fix bug: miner configuration can't saved in the SD card occasionally.

[CEXIO123]

There is a new firmware out that may resolve this issue:

https://bitmaintech.com/files/download/initramfs.bin.SD-20140619.tar
fix bug: miner configuration can't saved in the SD card occasionally.

Thanks for the link but I have tried that firmware and it didn't make a difference.  All settings are still lost after any shutdown/reboot.

I have tried a new Sandisk 30 MB/s card and a new Samsung 90 MB/s card.  Neither made a difference.

[smilingloki]

Hi there,

so i have 2x  miners, 1 worked perfect straight out of the box~! woop woop!

1 didnt - so i backed up the version that worked and made a copy of it.

then i flashed that to the one that didnt work.

BOOM! worked

So now i just edited my workers in the configuration page and resaved

I AM GOLDEN !

If someone is after an image of it - i can put it up to an ftp site if anyone wants.

[CEXIO123]

Hi there,

so i have 2x  miners, 1 worked perfect straight out of the box~! woop woop!

1 didnt - so i backed up the version that worked and made a copy of it.

then i flashed that to the one that didnt work.

BOOM! worked http://iforce.co.nz/i/jsdfmonu.0tf.jpg

So now i just edited my workers in the configuration page and resaved

I AM GOLDEN !

If someone is after an image of it - i can put it up to an ftp site if anyone wants.

I still have a miner that will not save any settings.  I would like to give yours a shot.

Feel free to Message Me.  I can provide you with a website to upload the image to.