Format eMMC storage on an Orange Pi, Radxa, etc.

To use eMMC modules on the Orange Pi, Radxa, Milk-V, etc. as a writable volume in Linux, you need to delete the existing partitions (on my old Orange Pi, it was formatted as FAT/WIN32), create a new partition, format the partition, then mount it:

  1. Delete the existing partitions, and create a new partition:
    1. sudo fdisk /dev/mmcblk1
    2. p to list all partitions, then d and a number, once for each of the existing partitions.
    3. n to create a new partition, then use all the defaults, then w to write the changes.
  2. Format the partition: sudo mkfs.ext4 -L "emmc" /dev/mmcblk1p1
  3. Create a mount point: sudo mkdir -p /mnt/emmc
  4. Mount the disk: sudo mount /dev/mmcblk1p1 /mnt/emmc

Note your eMMC device may be a different ID, e.g. mmcblk2 or mmcblk0, depending on the order the board firmware loads multiple devices in. Check with lsblk to see which device you would like to modify.

Further reading

orange pi
emmc
format
fdisk
partition
mount
linux
debian

Comments

hello Jeff,
thanks for the blog. it's very usefull. I am tryied it & worked fine. now i am trying to install linux on orangepi emmc. i booted from sd card & tryied to dd Lubuntu.img to emmc. i am able to write image on emmc but its not booting. can you please tell me that, how can install linux on emmc & boot from it?
thnk you.

Hi Jeff I have an Orange Pi Pc Plus working (very nice) but I have installed on the EMMC Flash an android from youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ0zLwynu4Q. The problem is I am not very good at Linux/Android and I'd like to be able to uninstall it in order tu use it for diferent proyects. I have written to the person who put it on youtube but I have not had any answer. I wonder if you would be so kind as to take a look at it and tell me how to do it - that is to uninstall it -
I thank you in advance ( even if you don't answer ) I understand that you may by a bussy person and me, an old 71 Y.O retired, trying to keep up with times hahaha.
Excuse if my English is not the best (this is not a translation) I lived in the UK for nine years ..... but too long ago. I live now in my home town Seville - Spain.
Anyway thanks again and I godbless:
Manuel Medrano.

orangepi@OrangePI:~$ sudo mkfs.ext4 -L "emmc" /dev/mmcblk1p1
sudo: unable to resolve host OrangePI
mke2fs 1.42.12 (29-Aug-2014)
Discarding device blocks: done
Creating filesystem with 3816704 4k blocks and 954720 inodes
Filesystem UUID: caef44cd-42e1-4fcb-a4e3-7c369b567028
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208
Allocating group tables: done
Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (32768 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done  
orangepi@OrangePI:~$ sudo mkdir /emmc
sudo: unable to resolve host OrangePI
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/emmc’: File exists
orangepi@OrangePI:~$ sudo mkdir /emmc
sudo: unable to resolve host OrangePI
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/emmc’: File exists
orangepi@OrangePI:~$ sudo mkdir/emmc
sudo: unable to resolve host OrangePI
sudo: mkdir/emmc: command not found
orangepi@OrangePI:~$ mount /dev/mmcblk1p1 /emmc
mount: only root can do that

Why?

You need to run the mount command as sudo (so sudo mount...). Also, all those other errors (File exists and command not found) are just saying that you already created the /emmc directory.