Note

Different systems have different system partitions. Here, I will use Android14 distributed image flashing as an example. Other systems use the same method.

What is Distributed Image

Simply put, it means splitting a complete system image into multiple partition images, and flashing them to different partitions separately, instead of using one large update.img to overwrite everything at once.

Common partition image examples:

• u-boot.img
• boot.img
• recovery.img
• Others like dtbo.img, vbmeta.img, etc.

Why use distributed image flashing?

• Convenient for on-demand updates: If you only changed the kernel or u-boot, you can flash only the corresponding partition without affecting other partitions
• Suitable for development and debugging: When frequently modifying a part (such as kernel), you can quickly flash it individually
• Better understanding of the system partition structure, facilitating problem location and troubleshooting

Download Tool

Go to the Network Disk Development Tools directory and download the RKDevTool_v3.32_for_window.zip archive.

After extracting, it looks like this:

1. RKDevTool.exe: The flashing development tool itself
2. Development Tool User Guide_v1.0.pdf: The usage documentation for this tool. It is recommended to read it in detail as it helps understand this tool.

Double-click RKDevTool.exe to open the software. There are three main categories:

Download Image: Function used when downloading distributed images.

Upgrade Firmware: Function used when downloading finished images.

Advanced: Advanced features provided by Rockchip, including erasing storage, unpacking img images, etc. For details, refer to the Development Tool User Guide_v1.0.pdf document.

Import Partition Structure File

There are two ways to obtain the partition file:

1. Directly go to the Download Center 🚀 and enter the network disk. In the system image directory, download the config.cfg file for the corresponding system

2. Compile the Debian or Buildroot system SDK yourself to generate the rockdev/config.cfg file. For Android system, there is one more directory level at rockdev/Image-tspi_3m/config.cfg.

Select to import the partition file and open config.cfg:

Then you can see the specific partition structure:

It shows RK3566 here, don't worry, it's a bug.

Flash Image

Here, I will use flashing the kernel separately as an example to explain how to flash distributed images. Other images can be flashed in a similar way:

Check the partition you want to flash

Select Image

Loader Mode Flashing

Power the development board and connect the data cable to the OTG Type-C interface:

1. Press and hold the REC button (do not release)
2. Then press the RST reset button once
3. After waiting for two seconds, release REC

The development board has entered Loader mode. In this mode, we can flash images to the development board.

Execution complete:

In this way, the individual image has been successfully flashed.