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Home / Other I-Appliances / 3Com Audrey Win2K CF Imaging Success . . . . and how you can do it! :-) Creating CF Images with Win2K

Win2K CF Imaging Success . . . . and how you can do it! :-) (modified 0 times) KJ_Jazz Profile After many annoying posts from me to this, and other boards, looking for some magical guidance, I finally pieced together everything I needed to create a working CF image to resurrect my fatally wounded Audrey. Pleas also bear with me on the detail I will put into this as I have noticed many people who want it just plain spelled out - like me! First off - if you haven't broken your Audry, make a CF image from her immediately upon gaining root access. I know I wish I had. There are several wonderful places to find out how to do this like: For Gaining Root Access: http://www.3rdmoon.com/crusso/audrey/#How can I update my Audrey's Software? And http://www.3rdmoon.com/crusso/audrey/#How can I add buttons to the action palette of my Audrey? For making the back-up: http://www.3rdmoon.com/crusso/audrey/#How can I create a backup CF Image? These are all links to the d*mn fine Audrey FAQ hosted by Chris Russo. Thanks Chris for putting this all in one place. NOW FOR THE NITTY GRITTY. 1. You must first gather all the tools and information you need. You will need: a. The correct size of your flash card (so I guess you need a CF card too, based on all my reading it should be at least 20Mb). See: http://www.linux-hacker.net/cgi-bin/UltraBoard/UltraBoard.pl?Action=ShowPost&Board=3Com_Audrey&Post=905&Idle=0&Sort=0&Order=Descend&Page=0&Session= Please note that the correct size is calculated by converting the "Capacity" from Hex (F500 or whatever yours reports) to decimal (you can do this using the calculator supplied with Win2K, simple change it to scientific - choose view and then scientific - change the format to Hex, type in the value F500 and then change the format to decimal again, wallah!) and multiplying that decimal (62720 in my case) by 512 (the number of bytes in a sector - ignore what Audrey reports). WRITE THIS NUMBER DOWN, mine was 32112640 (SanDisk 32Mb) b. A valid image. There are many around, but for a simple, clean basically unhacked (so you can have the fun yourself) I would suggest one off of: http://www.audreyhacking.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Downloads&file=index&req=viewdownload&cid=5 I would choose either "UpdateWithShell.cf" or "UpdateWithShellPlus.cf" the one labeled "1002074338 Image" also includes the boot loader image. After all the trouble I've had I would avoid flashing the boot loader like the plaque, but hey - it's your Audrey, just because you can't buy anymore . . . ALSO - you may want to grab "jayklm's image" not neccessarily for the image itself (I think it is also a boot loader image), but included in the archive is mkcf (next step), md5sum (a utility you can use to do checksums on the images you just downloaded - which also came with files that tell you what the checksum should be) and NTRW which unfortunately doesn't seem to work under Win2K very well. BTW - if your checksums don't match - don't use the image!! c. mkcf.exe utility. This allows you to expand the original file size of the image to match your card capacity. This can be found in "jayklm's image" or at: http://www.sowbug.com/audrey/hack_index.html Despite how much cursing I did at this utility, thanks Sowbug, it really does work, it was just windows screwing it up (also thank you for the source archive as I ended up compiling it on my new QNX box without so much as a thought - and I've only done that like twice in my life - good job!) d. Here's the twist, you need the unix dd utility for Win32. Amazingly, I found that at: http://www.datafocus.com/eval/ You want to download the "MKS Toolkit for System Administrators Demo". This is a 30 Day free trial (did I also mention 36Mb, but look around, there are smaller versions, I just don't know if they have dd or not), so you have to fill out some information to get it, but it's very cool. It may even be worth the actual $300 single user license, but all you want right now is dd, so . . . For more information on dd: http://www.datafocus.com/docs/man1/dd.1.asp e. You need to know the "Physical Disk Drive Device Name" of your CF Reader/Writer. It will be something like "//./PHYSICALDRIVE0". I can only vouche for my USB, SanDisk SDDR-31, but you should be able to find this by the following procedure: 1. Start -> Programs -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management 2. In the left hand window, expand "Storage" (by double-clicking) 3. Then expand "Removeable Storage" (by double-clicking) 4. Then expand "Physical Locations" (by double-clicking) 5. You should see a listing for your device. Mine says: "SanDisk ImageMate II USB Device", but I also see my CD and CDRW as well as the flash card on my printer so I think you should be albe to find yours. 6. Right mouse-click your device in the left hand window and select "Properties" 7. Select the "Device Info" tab of the property sheet 8. Look after the entry "Device Name" and you should see the real name of your device. Mine says "\.\PhysicalDrive3" (Please note the difference in the slashes used in this property sheet and the slashes used later for the dd command. You will notice that dd uses the appropriate UNIX format, not the botched windows format - and that comes from a 3 time MCSE) 2. All that just to get to step two huh? Well you need to extract the images and mkcf utility into a directory using an archive utility like PKZIP. I would suggest a new folder at the root of one of your hard drives, as I originally had it buried 20 directories deep and it was getting to be a pain since much of this needs to be done from the command prompt. Also install the MKS toolkit and your CF Reader/Writer. You will probably have to reboot many times - despite this being Win2k. 3. For the following I will assume that my images and the mkcf utility are in the d:\images directory (cause mine are, yours may vary)and I will be using the "UpdateWithShell.cf" gotten from the above link to the Audrey Hacking Site. So. a. Go to a command prompt (Start -> run -> "cmd" <enter>) b. Go to the directory you have your images in. (d: <enter> cd images <enter> c. Create the correct sized image file: d:\images>mkcf UpdateWithShell.cf audrey.flash 32112640 Again where "d:\images>" is the prompt for my system, "mkcf" is the utility, "UpdateWithShell.cf" is the image you've chosen to use "audrey.flash" is any filename you choose, I just liked this one, and "32112640" is the size of the CF card that you wrote down in step 1.a. Here is my actual display and output: D:\Images>mkcf UpdateWithShell.cf audrey.flash 32112640 Read file of size 16515072. File checksum is 7b1eb7aa. Creating output file 'audrey.flash' of size 32112640...done! d. Get your pretty new image onto the CF Card. Here is my display and output: D:\Images>dd if=audrey.flash of=//./physicaldrive3 62720+0 Records In 62720+0 Records Out Where "audrey.flash" is the file you created in the last step, "//./physicaldrive3" is the device name you found for your CF Reader/Writer in step 1.e.8. and "62720" should be the same number you converted from Hex in step 1.a. e. If you want to quick verify your image and you have the NTRW utility, then try this: D:\Images>ntrw read return h: Where "return" is simply a filename which doesn't already exist and "h:" is the drive letter Win2K assigned to your CF Reader/Writer. My command and output look like this: D:\Images>ntrw read return h: NTRW v2.00 Removeable media Cylinders: 0:3 TracksPerCylinder: 255 SectorsPerTrack: 63 BytesPerSector: 512 bufsize is 65536 32096256 bytes written 1 bytes: 0 I also had some sort of CRC error at the output of the command - 'cause as you notice NTRW only thinks the CF is 32096256, not 32112640, but that doesn't matter 'cause if you do a directory listing of the file you pulled off the CF D:\Images>dir return Volume in drive D is HOPE Volume Serial Number is 2471-5ABF Directory of D:\Images 01/03/2002 08:09p 32,112,640 return 1 File(s) 32,112,640 bytes 0 Dir(s) 905,936,896 bytes free You will notice that the file size of "return" that we pulled off the CF is exactly the size we wanted in the first place. YOUR CARD SHOULD NOW BE ABLE TO FLASH AUDREY!!! THANKS FOR YOUR PATIENCE. If you need more info - like how to boot with your new image on Audrey, try that amazing Audrey FAQ at: http://www.3rdmoon.com/crusso/audrey/ Thanks to everyone who helped and all the great people on this board for their insite, mistakes, etc. 01-03-2002 19:33:47

RE:Win2K CF Imaging Success . . . . and how you can do it! :-) (modified 0 times) huggy_d1 Profile Hey, anyone know if this works for XP? If it worked for win2K, it just might?!? I would like to know if anyone else has XP'd and Audrey CF and then used it (using an SDDR-31 no less!). Thanks to those wonderful DNS spoofers, my Audrey finally updated today (and has the root shell hack too)! Now I want to back this thing up, verify the backup actually worked, and then .... perhaps even put some of the wonderful images you fine folks have been posting. Any suggestions before I go down this road? I feel I'm not going it alone, but on the XP side, perhaps I'm a pioneer? Provided I have a good image, I should be A-Ok regardless of what I muck up.... right? <famous last words> huggy(d1) 01-07-2002 23:27:36

RE:Win2K CF Imaging Success . . . . and how you can do it! :-) (modified 0 times) dougscot Profile Just did the above with XP Prof and it worked just fine. I have exactly the same hardware as the example, and used his numbers. Before using his numbers I could not get my non-booting Audrey up. Had me scared for a bit there...thanks KJ_Jazz.. 01-17-2002 08:13:04

RE:Win2K CF Imaging Success . . . . and how you can do it! :-) (modified 0 times) bikeswine Profile OK. I am new to Audrey. I just got mine a couple of weeks ago. I have been trying to update it using the Updatewithshellplus images found here. I have read various sources on how to do this until I am blue in the face. (It's not pretty...) I have a W2k laptop and bought a Sandisk 32MB CF and a PNY usb reader. (when that didn't work I even bought a Sandisk reader but have had the same results) I started by doing a "NTRW read size.cf j:" to write out a file and check the size of my CF. It created a file of 32030720 bytes. Using this number I did "MKCF updatewithshellplus.cf audrey.cf 32030720" This completed ok. I then did "NTRW write audrey.cf j:" It said it transfered OK. When I place it in the CF slot on the Audrey and plug it in whil holding the datebook and power buttons I get and "FATAL: Invalid image XLv01.12" error. I then thought rather than look like a total fool to all you Audrey masters here I thought I'd try the Linux appoach before posting here. There I downloaded the source for MKCF and compiled it. I did a "MKCF updatewithshellplus.cf audrey.cf 32030720" on the Linux box and it worked fine. I then did a "dd if=aurdrey.cf > /dev/sda1" (sda1 is where my usb reader shows up. Also note: the reader works fine with a fat formated CF in it so I know this is the correct device) It writes out the file fine but when I try the CF in the Audrey I still get the same error. I even double checked the size of the CF card in Linux with a "dd if=/dev/sda1 of=size.cf" and it created the same 32030720 size file. I know through my self at your combined wisdom for assistance before I through myself over a tall building. Thanks, Bikeswine 01-23-2002 22:59:05

RE:Win2K CF Imaging Success . . . . and how you can do it! :-) (modified 0 times) sys_spud Profile dd is also available in the WinXS utilities: http://www.softwareonline.org/winxs40.html This is a fairly nice suite of unix-like utilities for Windoze. $30 shareware. I have not personally tried the dd utility in this suite for the purposes of hacking a CF card, use at your own risk. pat_pending@cosmiverse.com 01-24-2002 17:07:21

RE:Win2K CF Imaging Success . . . . and how you can do it! :-) (modified 0 times) Curious Profile Is there a way boot with the external CF without flashing it to the internal? 01-24-2002 21:23:25

RE:Win2K CF Imaging Success . . . . and how you can do it! :-) (modified 0 times) bikeswine Profile Well I got it working thanks to D. R. Hunter. The correct size for my compact flash was 32112640. Not sure why nothing I did came up with that number but it works. You can boot from a CF without flashing it to your Audrey by only holding down the datebook key whiule plugging it in. Bikeswine 01-25-2002 10:53:54

RE:Win2K CF Imaging Success . . . . and how you can do it! :-) (modified 0 times) CyberA Profile I feel as though I am getting closer. When I use DD (WinXs) I get: 62720+0 Records In 62041+679 Records Out Unfortunately, when I got my Audrey it had no CF. With a null modem I get the following information with my SanDisk 32MB: 3Com IPL XLv01.12 ======== Loading from CompactFlash Config : 0000848A Sector sz: 00000240 Capacity : 0000F500 File size: 00000000 FATAL: Invalid image Is there any special consideration when Format the CF under Windows2000? I get the feeling when I am formatting it's not leaving enough space on the card for the image. Thanks in advance, CyberA 02-17-2002 16:02:15

RE:Win2K CF Imaging Success . . . . and how you can do it! :-) (modified 0 times) ravic Profile Looks like the easiest way to flash the Audrey is to use the fs-cifs and cat to load the image onto CF card and then flash the audrey. I was successful in loading the jukebox2.cf that way. Audrey had problems recognizing the Lexar 64MB CF. I went and bought a Sandisk 64MB CF today at staples for $20 AR. Sandisk worked successfully. Ravi 02-17-2002 18:45:47

RE:Win2K CF Imaging Success . . . . and how you can do it! :-) (modified 0 times) CyberA Profile Unfortunatley, in my case, I do not have any access to the Audrey to run anything directly from it. CyberA 02-18-2002 06:33:40

RE:Win2K CF Imaging Success . . . . and how you can do it! :-) (modified 0 times) ravic Profile Did you try using gemulator explorer. I do not have links handy but i was able to use that with my CF card. You size seems to be 32112640 Which size did you use when creating the image for your CF ?. 02-18-2002 07:31:55

RE:Win2K CF Imaging Success . . . . and how you can do it! :-) (modified 0 times) CyberA Profile Yes that is the size I have been trying with. When I use NTRW with that size I get Invalid Parameter and when I use dd I get the above output. Unfortunately with Gemulator explorer I cannot write to my CF (the option is greyed out). Thanks again! :( CyberA 02-18-2002 20:30:41

RE:Win2K CF Imaging Success . . . . and how you can do it! :-) (modified 0 times) ravic Profile With gemulator you need to write to the device which says "scsi...sandisk...". You should not be selecting the "G:\" (assuming G: is your compact flash drive). To see that scsi device you need to reboot the machine with the card in the card reader. Ravi 02-19-2002 18:16:45

RE:Win2K CF Imaging Success . . . . and how you can do it! :-) (modified 0 times) CyberA Profile Finally got it! I was able to get one of my older PC loaded with WIN98 and used Gemulator to copy the image to the CF. So far so good. Thanks to everyons assistance, 02-23-2002 07:36:35

RE:Win2K CF Imaging Success . . . . and how you can do it! :-) (modified 0 times) Pep42 Profile I recently updated my new Audrey using compact flash in a somewhat easier way than I've seen posted anywhere. I used the following setup: - Dazzle USB compact flash reader - Sandisk 32MB CF card - Windows XP - mkcf.exe utility - hex workshop - "Shell plus" image Here are the simple steps (they look long, but I was trying to be descriptive): 1) Make the image the correct size using the mkcf.exe utility. I'm not sure that this step is necessary, since I tried two different values for the CF card size and the audrey seemed to like both. In the end, I used the default value: "mkcf UpdateWithShellPlus.cf audrey.flash" 2) Put the card in the reader 3) Run hex workshop. In the menu bar, select "Disk"->"Open Drive". In the listbox, select "all". You should see a few physical drives listed; one of them should be your CF card (mine was 30.63MB). Select this drive and click "open" 4) In the menu bar, select "Disk"->"Restore Sector Range". In the dialog, select the file you created in step 1 ("audrey.flash"). Make sure that that starting sector is "0" and click the OK button. When the progress bar is done, the card is ready. 5) Turn off the audrey (unplug it / turn off the power strip it's plugged into). Insert the CF card you just made. Turn it on, holding down the calendar (top-right) button. 6) The audrey should report something like "Booting from CF card". After a minute or two, it will switch to "Running image". The audrey will boot into its original configuration (NOT the one stored on the CF card). If this happens, then the data on the CF card should be usable. Anything else probably means that something went wrong in the writing process, or the image was bad, so you shouldn't continue to the next step. 7) Power-cycle the audrey, this time holding down both the power and calendar buttons when turning it back on. It will go through a long sequence, booting the image, erasing the CF card, writing the CF card, then eventually say to remove the CF card and turn off the machine. Do as it says, then power the audrey on again. 8) If everything goes well, at this point the audrey should be properly imaged. You can probably also use winhex (instead of hex workshop) to write the image, but I've not yet been able to try it, since the shareware version is crippled. 02-25-2002 01:47:01

RE:Win2K CF Imaging Success . . . . and how you can do it! :-) (modified 0 times) Hummercash Profile WOOHOO!!! I used Pep42's method with my Lexar firewire drive, Crucial 32mb cf card and Win2k and it worked like a charm. I haven't been able to get shell on my 2 audeys since i bought them... now i can update both with any image i want :) Thanks to everyone who contributed to my success ;) .//chris 08-07-2002 18:51:01

RE:Win2K CF Imaging Success . . . . and how you can do it! :-) (modified 0 times) aardvarko Profile Have you tried this with the free dd.exe included in Cygwin? 08-18-2002 02:27:26

RE:Win2K CF Imaging Success . . . . and how you can do it! :-) (modified 0 times) frosty Profile Pep42, you are a suuuper-genius! That is SO far and away easier than any other setup I've seen, and it worked first try! Now if only I can get my Jukebox image to recognize my Netgear ethernet adapter! Thanks! Frosty 09-05-2002 18:38:44

/dev/socket HELP (modified 0 times) tel0p Profile OK, i tried Pep42's method with success, and writing two seperate images. After the 'remove card / power' i get this on my console (via null modem): 3Com IPL Scanning for Image at FF000000 Image at: FF000414 Image setup Starting image Unable to access "/dev/socket" (2) Shutdown[0,0] S/C/F=10/3/11 C/D=ff9200d4/ff952ebc state(c0)= now lock [0]PID-TID=1-4? P/T FL=00019001/04020000 "./bootfiles/procnto" [0]ASPACE PID=45062 PF=00008012 x86 context[ffbfc29c]: 0000: 0804a000 ffbef8d0 c0001e9c ffbfc2bc 01000033 ff945d36 00000400 00000000 0020: ff928722 0000001d 00011206 c0001e58 00000099 instruction[ff928722]: f3 ab e9 7a 01 00 00 83 7d e0 00 0f 84 70 01 00 00 c7 45 c8 34 24 95 ff 83 7d stack[c0001e58]: 0000: 00000000 00000000 ff942ca6 c0001e84 ffbef8e8 0804a000 ff947bd2 ff951de8 0020: 00000000 00001000 00000258 ffbf19e8 00000258 ffbef9c0 00000000 0804a000 0040: 00001000 c0001f1c 00000014 00000078 ffbf50ac ff92b8aa ffbfe730 0804a258 0060: 000003c9 00000300 00000033 00000000 00000258 00000000 00000000 c0001f0c Any idea what /dev/socket (2) problem is? please somebody, anybody... ? :/ 09-25-2002 16:11:43

also when loading from CF (modified 0 times) tel0p Profile If I just try and load the image from CF (holding datebook only) I get: 3Com IPL XLv01.12 ======== Loading from CompactFlash Config : 0000848A Sector sz: 00000200 Capacity : 0000FB00 Not compressed File size: 00FC0000 max_sectors: 00007E00 Sum (calculated): F9D891CA Sum (stored): F9D891CA Uncompressed len: 00FC0000 Image download complete Scanning for Image at 00400000 Image at: 00400414 Image setup Starting image Unable to access "/dev/socket" (2) Unable to access "/dev/photon" (2) 09-25-2002 16:20:30

RE:Win2K CF Imaging Success . . . . and how you can do it! :-) (modified 0 times) ny15 Profile Pep42, You made moving the image to a Compactflash seem very easy. I did everything you suggested many times. The only different was that I have a Sandisk 32MB card. Everything seemed to go well until I placed the card into my Audrey, held down the calander key and turned on Audrey. The error came up FATAL: Invalid Image XLv01.12. Any idea why? John 11-15-2002 16:43:16

RE:Win2K CF Imaging Success . . . . and how you can do it! :-) (modified 0 times) ny15 Profile I still cannot get my downloaded Audrey image over to my Audrey. The problem may be in figuring out what size to make the image using MKCF. Please help. John 11-23-2002 12:53:42

RE:Win2K CF Imaging Success . . . . and how you can do it! :-) (modified 0 times) Normal_Guy Profile I was able to image my Audrey with the InfinityUltimate1.1a image using Pep42's method, but with a mkcf.exe image size of 32112640. Windows XP with a GE Card Reader and a 32MB SanDisk CF. My Fuji CF card just wouldn't work with any size, but then again I didn't know how to calculate it. 12-03-2002 19:19:09

RE:Win2K CF Imaging Success . . . . and how you can do it! :-) (modified 0 times) ny15 Profile Thanks everybody. I finally did get the image to work. I made a mistake using the hex program. Looks like it was my fault. My Audrey now seems terribly slow with all the new programs. Where can I get a list of possible images people have created? John 12-07-2002 10:51:19

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