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Boot from Compact Flash (modified 0 times) Jeff102410 Profile | Email I've searched the board for several days now looking for any information on this, but all I can find is old posts, so rather than bring up a dated thread, I started a new one. I've got the IDE/Compact Flash adapter from pcEngines, and a 256Meg CF card. On my desktop, I remove all the hard drives, attached the IDE/CF adapter, and boot from the floppy drive to DOS. Next, FDisk the CF drive, mark it Active, then reboot. Next Format with move system files. I can then reboot the desktop from the CF card, no problem. I power down the desktop, remove the CF adapter/card, put it in the iOpener, and boot. I expected to get a DOS prompt, but get Invalid or damaged Bootable partition. Just because...I disabled the SanDisk by cutting and lifting pins 37 & 39 on the SanDisk Controller. HDD detection does not see the SanDisk anymore, so I don't think this is in the mix... So...I'm wondering if anyone has any experience getting an iOpener to boot from a IDE/CF adapter? and if so, how did you get it to work? 08-19-2002 21:27:15

RE:Boot from Compact Flash (modified 0 times) Finatronics Profile Sounds to me like you need a new BIOS (the original one doesn't support booting from hard drives). Or, you have a defective cable, or something. I've been booting from the CF slot (I soldered it onto the board) for a while now, but that avoids the problems of the cable and the twists necessary... Eric 09-02-2002 20:28:55

RE:Boot from Compact Flash (modified 0 times) Jeff102410 Profile | Email Thanks for the reply. I have been using this unit downstairs to check e-mail, surf, etc. for a while now. I was wanting to make it a solid state device (eliminate HD noise) if possible. Ive been able to boot from and HD no problem for a while now. I run Win98Lite/Opera/Linksys Wireless. Tried everything I can think of (settings, configuration stuff, etc.). The CF boots just fine on my desktop, but I get the letters "LI" then nothing else when booting from CF on the iOpener. I have a test HD that I have formatted with DOS and can get it to boot both the desktop and iOpener with no problem. I'm gearing up to get a CF adapter soldered onto the board and see if it will work from there. I'm also wondering if there is some issue with the CF I'm usine (PQI). I also have a Lexer CF card, but it will not boot on the desktop. I ran across a couple of threads on the net that talked about some issues with Lexer CF using IDE mode. What type of CF card are you using? 09-03-2002 09:24:26

RE:Boot from Compact Flash (modified 0 times) Jeff102410 Profile | Email Just to follow up... Got a 64M Sandisk CF card...still no luck. This time I get a invalid media error. 09-03-2002 22:10:40

RE:Boot from Compact Flash (modified 0 times) piperpacer Profile Jeff, Finatronics I would like to boot from CF card as well. I'm curious as to what device your soldering to the I-Opener and where? 09-09-2002 14:39:16

RE:Boot from Compact Flash (modified 0 times) Jeff102410 Profile | Email I could try to explain...but codeman has it better... http://www.linux-hacker.net/cgi-bin/UltraBoard/UltraBoard.pl?Action=ShowPost&Board=technical&Post=1478&Idle=&Sort=&Order=&Page=&Session= 09-15-2002 21:06:55

RE:Boot from Compact Flash (modified 0 times) kesh314 Profile Sorry to dig up an old thread but I have an idea for you. I hacked some Acer NT150 boxen. They had 40 IDE headers so you could boot from a regular 3.5" or laptop HDD. They had a little quirk where the ROM would overwrite the boot partition (presumably the first/only partition on the HD) and trash whatever was put on there. The solution was to create *TWO* partitions. The first would just be a small 8/16 MB in size. I guess for a CF with more limited space, go as small as you can, but try a larger one first. Then use the remainder of the space for the second partition. Mark the second partition as the active one and install your OS to the second partition. Since I'm just pulling this out of my ... perhaps you should test this theory on a regular desktop first. I *know* this works for regular HDD media, but might not for whatever reason with a CF card. Good luck. I have been thinking about doing the exact same thing. Please reply one way or the other if you try this. 10-23-2002 20:13:58

RE:Boot from Compact Flash (modified 0 times) Jeff102410 Profile | Email Thanks for the idea. It turns out that the problem was not the CF or the adapter. It is the way the fdisk works with the CF card (apparently). I downloaded the Ranish Partition Manager (http://www.ranish.com/part/partbeta.zip). It showed that the first partition was not being used, the second partition was the one being...whatever.... Anyway, Rahish Partition Manager allowed me to remove whatever fdisk had done, set the CF drive correctly, and then set the CF partition to active. I then exited from RPM, rebooted, formatted the CF drive with sys (MSDOS). I rebooted again, set the BIOS to boot from the CF card drive, and bingo...it's working. Also, RPM allowed me to get the SanDisk to boot (which I had previously done). I was booting from the SandDisk drive (where I had moved RPM) and worked the CF card from there. If this is not clear, let me know. Again, thanks for your input. 10-26-2002 12:52:30

RE:Boot from Compact Flash (modified 0 times) Jeff102410 Profile | Email Just for archiving purposes... I've not had much success using non-SanDisk CF. Lexar and some others seem to have a problem booting. I have found a couple of posts in the internet verifying this. To date, SanDisk CF have always worked (for me). 11-07-2002 21:13:45

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