I have some hardware on the way to try an eliminate things, but the first of these turned up today and it is an NVMe M.2 SSD housing. This allowed me to plug the SSD into another machine and run the Pi imager. It did not complain and wrote and verified the image.
I tried to boot the Pi from the SSD, and during the boot it went to blank screen for a bit too long (20 or 30s I guess). I should have left it longer probably, but I decided to restart from the sd card instead. I then attempted to copy the sd card to the SSD. This previously would have failed with "cant write to sector 0" errors. However it completed, and the pi is now booting and running (at least for the moment) from the SSD.
I dont really understand the mode of failure, and when I could not reset it from the pi, it for now at least it appears to be sorted.
Many thanks to all who responded.
I tried to boot the Pi from the SSD, and during the boot it went to blank screen for a bit too long (20 or 30s I guess). I should have left it longer probably, but I decided to restart from the sd card instead. I then attempted to copy the sd card to the SSD. This previously would have failed with "cant write to sector 0" errors. However it completed, and the pi is now booting and running (at least for the moment) from the SSD.
I dont really understand the mode of failure, and when I could not reset it from the pi, it for now at least it appears to be sorted.
Many thanks to all who responded.
Statistics: Posted by marthr — Sat Jan 03, 2026 11:42 pm