[Venkat]

Hi,

I have searched this newsgroup and have read many posts about making a
CompactFlash bootable.

My target device is an embedded PC that does not have a CD-ROM or
Floppy drive.

I used a CF-to-IDE adapter to connect my CF card to another machine. I
then booted into DOS using a bootdisk, used FDISK to create a DOS
partition and set it active, and then used FORMAT to format the flash
disk.

Then when I put the disk back into my embedded PC, it will not boot.

When I first received the disk from the manufacturer of the PC, they
had configured it to be bootable and it was working fine. I tried to
format the disk using a USB card reader, and I think that caused it to
stop working. I'm trying to get it to boot again

Thanks for any help

[Brad Combs]

Venkat,

You missed one important step! After you format the CF run bootprep.exe to
create an XP compatible bootloader on the disk. For example is the CF is C:
you would run bootprep /dC You will be prompted to confirm twice and the
bootloader will be updated. You can find bootprep.exe at C:\Program
Files\Windows Embedded\utilities\bootprep.exe. It is a DOS program.

HTH,
Brad

"Venkat" <anandh@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1120148659.817279.150030@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Hi,
>
> I have searched this newsgroup and have read many posts about making a
> CompactFlash bootable.
>
> My target device is an embedded PC that does not have a CD-ROM or
> Floppy drive.
>
> I used a CF-to-IDE adapter to connect my CF card to another machine. I
> then booted into DOS using a bootdisk, used FDISK to create a DOS
> partition and set it active, and then used FORMAT to format the flash
> disk.
>
> Then when I put the disk back into my embedded PC, it will not boot.
>
> When I first received the disk from the manufacturer of the PC, they
> had configured it to be bootable and it was working fine. I tried to
> format the disk using a USB card reader, and I think that caused it to
> stop working. I'm trying to get it to boot again
>
> Thanks for any help
>

[Slobodan Brcin \(eMVP\)]

Venkat,

> My target device is an embedded PC that does not have a CD-ROM or
> Floppy drive.

Unfortunately it is vital that you do fdisk, format, and bootprep on target device so that disk geometry seen by this BIOS is
written to CF :-(

Regards,
Slobodan



"Venkat" <anandh@gmail.com> wrote in message news:1120148659.817279.150030@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Hi,
>
> I have searched this newsgroup and have read many posts about making a
> CompactFlash bootable.
>
> My target device is an embedded PC that does not have a CD-ROM or
> Floppy drive.
>
> I used a CF-to-IDE adapter to connect my CF card to another machine. I
> then booted into DOS using a bootdisk, used FDISK to create a DOS
> partition and set it active, and then used FORMAT to format the flash
> disk.
>
> Then when I put the disk back into my embedded PC, it will not boot.
>
> When I first received the disk from the manufacturer of the PC, they
> had configured it to be bootable and it was working fine. I tried to
> format the disk using a USB card reader, and I think that caused it to
> stop working. I'm trying to get it to boot again
>
> Thanks for any help
>

[Thomas Johansen]

Hi

If you PC has USB or IDE, yot could boot the PC form af DOS harddisk og a
USB key with DOS boot. Then run fdisk/format/bootprep from that boot media.

/Thomas

"Venkat" <anandh@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1120148659.817279.150030@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Hi,
>
> I have searched this newsgroup and have read many posts about making a
> CompactFlash bootable.
>
> My target device is an embedded PC that does not have a CD-ROM or
> Floppy drive.
>
> I used a CF-to-IDE adapter to connect my CF card to another machine. I
> then booted into DOS using a bootdisk, used FDISK to create a DOS
> partition and set it active, and then used FORMAT to format the flash
> disk.
>
> Then when I put the disk back into my embedded PC, it will not boot.
>
> When I first received the disk from the manufacturer of the PC, they
> had configured it to be bootable and it was working fine. I tried to
> format the disk using a USB card reader, and I think that caused it to
> stop working. I'm trying to get it to boot again
>
> Thanks for any help
>

[Semir]

Hi,

Don't forget to format CF to be FAT16 not FAT32, in most cases you don't
have to make bootprep,try and send results.Maybe this help.

Semir


"Thomas Johansen" <thrawn[NO SPAM]@hest.com___KÆP> wrote in message
news:uQS1PaJgFHA.1444@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
> Hi
>
> If you PC has USB or IDE, yot could boot the PC form af DOS harddisk og a
> USB key with DOS boot. Then run fdisk/format/bootprep from that boot
> media.
>
> /Thomas
>
> "Venkat" <anandh@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1120148659.817279.150030@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>> Hi,
>>
>> I have searched this newsgroup and have read many posts about making a
>> CompactFlash bootable.
>>
>> My target device is an embedded PC that does not have a CD-ROM or
>> Floppy drive.
>>
>> I used a CF-to-IDE adapter to connect my CF card to another machine. I
>> then booted into DOS using a bootdisk, used FDISK to create a DOS
>> partition and set it active, and then used FORMAT to format the flash
>> disk.
>>
>> Then when I put the disk back into my embedded PC, it will not boot.
>>
>> When I first received the disk from the manufacturer of the PC, they
>> had configured it to be bootable and it was working fine. I tried to
>> format the disk using a USB card reader, and I think that caused it to
>> stop working. I'm trying to get it to boot again
>>
>> Thanks for any help
>>
>
>

[Thomas Johansen]

> Hi,
>
> Don't forget to format CF to be FAT16 not FAT32, in most cases you don't
> have to make bootprep,try and send results.Maybe this help.

or NTFS... what ever you like. But you allways need to ude bootprep.. No
bootloader, no boot

>
> Semir
>
>
> "Thomas Johansen" <thrawn[NO SPAM]@hest.com___KÆP> wrote in message
> news:uQS1PaJgFHA.1444@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
> > Hi
> >
> > If you PC has USB or IDE, yot could boot the PC form af DOS harddisk og
a
> > USB key with DOS boot. Then run fdisk/format/bootprep from that boot
> > media.
> >
> > /Thomas
> >
> > "Venkat" <anandh@gmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:1120148659.817279.150030@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> I have searched this newsgroup and have read many posts about making a
> >> CompactFlash bootable.
> >>
> >> My target device is an embedded PC that does not have a CD-ROM or
> >> Floppy drive.
> >>
> >> I used a CF-to-IDE adapter to connect my CF card to another machine. I
> >> then booted into DOS using a bootdisk, used FDISK to create a DOS
> >> partition and set it active, and then used FORMAT to format the flash
> >> disk.
> >>
> >> Then when I put the disk back into my embedded PC, it will not boot.
> >>
> >> When I first received the disk from the manufacturer of the PC, they
> >> had configured it to be bootable and it was working fine. I tried to
> >> format the disk using a USB card reader, and I think that caused it to
> >> stop working. I'm trying to get it to boot again
> >>
> >> Thanks for any help
> >>
> >
> >
>
>

[Venkat]

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for your tips, I think I have it working now.

I did the following (hopefully this will help anyone else who's having
a similar problem):

Using a CF-to-IDE adapter, I plugged my CF card into another machine.
-I booted that machine using a DOS bootdisk
-deleted all partitions from the CF
-created a DOS partition, set it active
-formatted the partition into FAT16
-BOOTPREP'd the partition

Then I plugged the CF into a USB card reader and copied my XPe image
onto it.
Then I plugged the CF into my target device, it booted fine and ran FBA
to completion.
Then I plugged back the CF back into my other machine (using the
CF-to-IDE adapter), booted into XP Professional, and ran CONVERT.EXE to
convert the CF into NTFS.
Then I plugged the CF back into the target device, and it boots fine.

>From now on, when I'm testing out more images, I simply delete all the
files from the CF (leaving the NTFS file system intact), and simply
copy the new image onto it

Thanks again!

[Thomas Johansen]

> Thanks for your tips, I think I have it working now.
>
> I did the following (hopefully this will help anyone else who's having
> a similar problem):
>
> Using a CF-to-IDE adapter, I plugged my CF card into another machine.
> -I booted that machine using a DOS bootdisk
> -deleted all partitions from the CF
> -created a DOS partition, set it active
> -formatted the partition into FAT16
> -BOOTPREP'd the partition

Here you actually just could have used Disk Manager or PartionMagic from
Windows operating system and made the need partitions. Saved you a DOS boot
and a convert. :-)
But that just details :-)

>
> Then I plugged the CF into a USB card reader and copied my XPe image
> onto it.
> Then I plugged the CF into my target device, it booted fine and ran FBA
> to completion.
> Then I plugged back the CF back into my other machine (using the
> CF-to-IDE adapter), booted into XP Professional, and ran CONVERT.EXE to
> convert the CF into NTFS.
> Then I plugged the CF back into the target device, and it boots fine.
>
> >From now on, when I'm testing out more images, I simply delete all the
> files from the CF (leaving the NTFS file system intact), and simply
> copy the new image onto it
>
> Thanks again!
>

[RaiderDav]

I've had a similar problem recently, and used a little app from HP to
set the partition as active:
http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/hpcpqdt/us/download/20306.html
I use a USB CF reader and format the CF with the HP utility, check the
create startup disk option, point to a bootable Win98 floppy, then copy
bootprep to the CF. That lets me boot up with the CF without any other
devices attached and run bootprep /dC. Just thought I'd throw that out
since I was struggling for a while with non-bootable CF media.

Dave