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Can't seem to get CF bootable

New MessageCan't seem to get CF bootable (modified 0 times) kb0npw
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Hopefully someone can steer me in the right direction. A family member gave me their old IA-1 in exchange for fixing their laptop. I did the BIOS hack and got into there just fine. The IA-1 sat for two weeks until I broke down and bought a CF reader at Wally World the other day. It is a Kodak 6-in-1 reader. I have been following the steps from several sites, but just can't get a CF to boot. Has anyone else had any experience with the Kodak device? I have two CF cards and have not been able to get either to work. They are an 8mb Lexar and a 32mb SanDisk. When I explore the cards under Windows, I can see the four system files there, but when the IA-1 boots, I get a message saying "non system disk" or "ERROR!" or something else. I am using Ranish under Win98 on my main machine.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

03-05-2004 00:05:49

New MessageRE:Can't seem to get CF bootable (modified 0 times) Zathros
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Hiyas IA hackers,

I've got the same problem with a apacer Flash card(model nr. AP-CF06411) from http://www.apacer.com .
The used OS is win 98 SE with a USB 8 in 1 card reader/writer(some Taiwan brand)WinOS shows it as "smsc hardiskadapter PDR".
I have tried severall filesystems, fat 16<32, fat 16 standard, Fat32. Made the boot partition bootable with Ranish part2.44, tried older versions too. Formatted it every time with /s option. Up to now no luck.
The Compaq IA1 didn't gave me any problems with resetting and hacking but even with the internal disk disabled it doesn't seem to be able to read from the compact smart card. The IA does recognize it perfectly in the BIOS of the IA device, still i can't boot in windows(might be another problem) or in the IA device.
I tried also differend drive numbers from 127 up to 131, changed the MBR in severall differend options. Still no luck.

Any suggestions left over here are welcomed by me(and prolly severall others).


With kind regards and respect,
____________Ted a.k.a Zathros.
__________________BeOS Deciple
03-15-2004 07:59:23

New MessageRE:Can't seem to get CF bootable (modified 0 times) jeffwingo
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I am having some problems, too. I am able to make a bootable CF using DiskProbe and the ElTorito image. I am able to boot the device a dd the image to the sandisk. I am able to boot the device with the ElTorito image from the sandisk. I am able to copy another image to the CF card (i.e JailBail, Midori, BE, etc.) and can dd that image up to the sandisk. That is as far as it goes. The unit will not boot from the sandisk xcept with ElTorito.

What am I doing wrong?

03-16-2004 12:41:26

New MessageRE:Can't seem to get CF bootable (modified 0 times) Zathros
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Hiyas IA Hackers,

At least you're able to get the removable Smart card booted if i understand your issue well, in your case it might be just a matter of making the sandisk bootable for the device, best way is probably Ranish partition manager. I am not particulairy fond of the default MS tools for it, most third party tools work much better(read less limitations). The eltorito image is probably already active as bootable, question is, is the image bootable, command com, Zbeos, or Zlinux Kernel or any other. my general knowledge goes as far that there must be a pointer towards the Kernel of the image you're trying to boot.
If you're able to load the Be image from CF disk/card you might want to use Drivesetup from BeOS Pe, it's more powerfull than the WinOS tools, very close to ranish only with a GUI. I use it primairely for making any partition or disk preps for a number of OSes.
You could also use a a Zbeos image of the bootfloppy which can be used the same as eltorito.
As soon as i can make my CF card bootable then i'll probably be in business and use BeOS for the device. Later i'l try to set up a small bootloader and minmal OS on the internal sandisk and be able to boot a veriety of OSes from removable CF disks what i prefer.
Most of them can work that way if you make a minimal footprint with only the drivers that you need.

I was also thinking of looking at a SymbianOS partition since i have a series 60 Nokia also, probably need some tweaking on driver level but there are more than enough tools and 3rd party software to do that.


With kind regards and respect,
____________Ted a.k.a Zathros.
__________________BeOS Deciple
03-16-2004 14:09:30

New MessageRE:Can't seem to get CF bootable (modified 0 times) jeffwingo
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I am such a newbie, so you will have to be patient with me. I have downloaded about 7 different images that have been created to boot this thing under various OS's. None of them work except the ElTorito image that I have used DiskProbe to create. I have no other tools since I am on a Windows XP machine. Using this and only this image, I can boot from the CF card, use dd to copy the image to the sandisk and then boot from the sandisk. Why is it that this works but none of the other ones work.

One interesting thing to note: Using DiskProbe, the CF reader does not show up as a "Device", but I must mount it using the drive letter that my system gives it. No problem with the ElTorito image. In fact, after writing that image, I can open the Cf card in Windows and see files...can't do that with any of the other images.

03-17-2004 11:21:53

New MessageRE:Can't seem to get CF bootable (modified 0 times) FrankXRizzo
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FWIW,

I have the same issue in booting El-Torito and no others. I am using a Canon 8MB for the El-Torito and a Viking 128MB for the Jailbait. I am using a SanDisk Imagemate SDDR-31 and my OS is Win2K. For Jailbait I can get the LI of LILO echoed to the screen, but that is as far as it gets.

Here is a question: I have the Ranish V2.40 and it wants a floppy in Drive A:. I don't want to screw around with my system. I just want to try and put a MBR on it or whatever is needed to make it bootable as Ted AKA Zathros pointed out. What might it be that we are missing here? This seems like a more generic linux booting issue to me.

I did notice that the El-Torito is a FAT file system and the others are something else ..not sure what they are. That is why jeffwingo can see the El-Torito and not the others. I will look further as I am late to this IA1 stuff, but think it is kinda cool to use a box that has been sitting on the shelve collecting dust for the last 2 years. I never could get more that a shell running on my Dreamcast box....:(

Franky

03-31-2004 17:18:31

New MessageRE:Can't seem to get CF bootable (modified 0 times) FrankXRizzo
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I got further after reading the posting "IA-1; CF Card, W2K laptop and Disk Probe: which physical drive?" of ESMM49. It seems that when using the win2k diskprobe utility you need to a "Physical Drive" and not a "Logical Drive". I was able to boot 2 other images, but not completely. The images get hung up on a network driver or lack on an "init" on the image. I don't like blindly using these images and just hoping for the best.

I might DL the source and see how I can make my own image on a linux box. Anyone tried that recently?

Franky

03-31-2004 18:04:58

New MessageRE:Can't seem to get CF bootable (modified 0 times) koltz
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In Ranish, when you are creating the partition, change it to Virtual Fat-16 instead of just normal Fat-16 and make sure you make it bootable. By changing the partition type, select it, press Enter and you have ton of choices. This is what I had to use for DOS which I would imagine would be the same for Win9x.
04-01-2004 08:23:32

New MessageRE:Can't seem to get CF bootable (modified 0 times) jack08180
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Seems that lots of the above problems are the same that I had. First off, you can't use the sandisk reader, and you cant use win2k as a host. After all of my headaches, I am still convinced that the hard drive number that you can set in part.exe is the key. I never could get the thing to straigh boot off the CF, but I was able to view it as a drive. I copied over part.exe, format.exe, and command.com (the basics to boot a hd) to the cf and formatted the internal hd. Then I moved those same files over to the internal hd and reformatted the CF card. The kicker was that when you do that, you have to shift in the bios which drive you are booting off of. Whichever hd is listed as hd 128 will be the C: and hd129 is d: (I think). But you can swap that between the internal hd and the cf with part.exe.
04-11-2004 18:06:55

New MessageRE:Can't seem to get CF bootable (modified 0 times) bentbike1
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try this find a linux bios there are two the one you want is the generic one the secound is specifc to mbo find some one to reflash the bios chip and 2. replace the emebed os on the chip it looks like the older bios rom chips the new os would be linux jail bait or some sort of small linux os
10-07-2004 19:58:55

New MessageRE:Can't seem to get CF bootable (modified 0 times) petecarlson
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if you can get the ElTorito image to boot in /dev/hdc (thats the external cf slot)...

Log in as root at the prompt.
copy the image over to the inside drive:
dd if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hda
this will copy the image to the inside cf card (/dev/hda)
wait till its done and turn the ia1 off. Take out the card and put it into a cf slot in your linux box.
Now you need to copy the real image you want to use onto the cf card.
MAKE SURE YOU KNOW WHAT DEVICE YOUR CF CARD IS (on my box its /dev/hdi)
dd if=/location if the image you want to use of=/dev/hdi (its hdi on my box)
this will copy the image to the CF card. Take the card out of your linux box and put it back into the IA1. Power up the IA1 and hit the compaq key to enter the bios. Switch the boot order back to inside drive first. Boot up the ElTorito image. Log in as root at the boot prompt. copy the new image over with:
dd if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hda (you can add the count=31296 or whatever your count was but it will work without it)
when it is done copying the image over reboot. (note) since you are copying over the image that you are running, sometimes it locks up but in that case just let it sit there for a bit and then reboot) when it reboots it should reboot to your new image. When I first got an ia1 I downloaded all sorts of wierd windows stuff like ranish ecc... after messing around with that for a few hours I thought about what I was trying to do. Get the thing to give me a console with some tools. (ElTorito) Copy an image to the center drive (dd) boot to the center drive and copy over a full image.

CP

10-28-2004 23:53:04

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