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Boot CF disks - why so hard? (modified 0 times) Ultanium Profile I have used physdiskwrite in winblows to install bootable OS's for the single board computers we use for wireless broadband. We run M0n0Wall, Star-OS, and Mikrotik which are all linux or BSD based. It has always been dead simple, just pick the image file and write the cf, insert it and boot. Why hasn't anyone written a script to automagically overwrite the original IA OS with hacked images when booting from the cf?? Is all this el-torrito, dd, stuff really nescesary? I am once again working on an IA-1 that I gave up on a year ago, and have resurected the project for a digital picture frame. Also planning to get Midori (if I can ever find it anywhere) on a ruggedized Itronix laptop I have collecting dust. It is gonna be a long linux weekend for me... :) Ult 05-28-2005 08:49:53

RE:Boot CF disks - why so hard? (modified 0 times) radarman Profile The answer is no - you don't have to do all that. When I was heavily into playing with these machines, I just mounted a CF disk in a standard ATA->CF converter, and used normal utilities to create the partitions and format them. Crap, with a large enough CF, you could probably even install from a CD-ROM (using a host system). In fact, the last time I really played with loading FreeBSD on my IA-1, I used a regular install (on a full-size PC) to create a bootable CF - then used that CF to modify the onboard flash. Once the onboard flash install got to the point where it could boot, I then created a /usr and /swap on an IBM microdrive. This is when I ran into the power issue - the darn PSU isn't hefty enough to handle the USB ethernet, mouse and microdrive at the same time... :( Keep in mind, CF emulates ATA/IDE - the only time you have to mess with all of this other crap is when you are attempting to use a USB CF reader. If you just plug your CF card into an ATA bus, you can use your normal methods to manipulate them. (USB CF readers are fine, depending on the model) The only trick is that now your CF card is no longer hot-swappable. Just like a hard disk, you have to shutdown your system to remove it. -radarman 05-31-2005 14:52:53

RE:Boot CF disks - why so hard? (modified 0 times) eeandersen Profile I have been having a terrible time creating a bootable CF. Using Win98SE as the host system and Ranish PART.EXE, I am able to partition and format. Windows to write system files to the CF (through USB reader). I am able to boot the PC from the CF / USB port, in fact. BUT, I am not able to boot the IA-1 into Win98SE; I get the message "Disk I/O error - Replace the disk and press any key." I should be able to boot the IA-1 into Win98 with a properly formatted and BIOS enabled CF, right? I dont know what I am doing wrong or where the incompatibility could be. I would appreciate any insight that anyone has!!! Thanks- EEAndersen 08-30-2005 20:49:31

RE:Boot CF disks - why so hard? (modified 0 times) keith721 Profile I'll look on my fileserver tomorrow. If I saved a copy of it a few years ago, I may have a CF image you could use. 10-17-2005 20:27:51

RE:Boot CF disks - why so hard? (modified 0 times) keith721 Profile Found it. E-mail me at keith721 @t carolina dot rr Dot com for more information. 10-17-2005 21:01:13

RE:Boot CF disks - why so hard? (modified 0 times) eeandersen Profile Hey Keith, I saw your reply here. Since I wrote that note, I have been able to boot my IA-1 from a CF; but not from JAILBAIT. I can use Damn Small Linux and Midori, but no other. I like DSL because it has native support for my Netgear MA111 wireless dongle (Prism2 chipset), I don't have the Linux ability to chase down and install the proper software to make it work with other distro's. Every other implementation I have tried gives me some kind of "kernel panic" or another error. Every JAILBAIT image stalls at LI, thich I presume is the start of LILO. Research into the meaning of LI tells me that there is a drive geometry issue that prevents the boot from continuing. I have a variety of CF including a 2G microdrive I picked up. I tried to install Win98 on the microdrive, but no go. BSOD everytime (and I did it 3 or 4 times), well into the install process..... Tell me of your successes. Do you have a functioning JAILBAIT image? Eric 10-23-2005 08:11:10

RE:Boot CF disks - why so hard? (modified 0 times) keith721 Profile Nope - never worked with the Jailbait stuff. Way back when, the Jailbait from Michael Rothwell's nc.flyingbuttmonkeys.com site was a good choice, but it was configured to run from the internal SanDisk chip. You had to hex edit the Jailbait image file to boot and run from /dev/hdb instead of /dev/hda to make it run successfully from the external CF slot. There's notes around here, somewhere. Google would probably find it most quickly. Back then, I was using the White IA-1 device with the totally unlocked BIOS, and it could boot just about anything. I built a 256 MB Compact Flash image of Win98SE, but never ran it very long because of the swap file problem writing excessively to the CF card. Rasmus' Jailbait Linux image was good if somewhat limited at the time. I also used the WinCE 4.0 Platform Builder disks to create a WinCE GUI image for the IA-1, but couldn't obtain and build in any network drivers, so it was kinda sterile. Worse than anything, I had to disconnect and remove my fileserver this past weekend, and it has copies of all my IA-1 images and tools. I've got 16 MB Win98SE DOS images with Ranish and Dolly on there. All my CF cards are packed away in storage right now, too. :( When all the home renovations are done (IF they EVER get done) and I get setup again, I'm determined to build a custom DamnSmallLinux image with all the drivers for the blue Clipper device and for the Gateway Connected Touchpad systems. The blue Clipper has a built-in PCnet32 ethernet interface, and I'd include kaweth and pegasus drivers for all those other USB adapters. 10-31-2005 14:02:18

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