Unable to boot from a XPe NTFS CF

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Guest

I have an ebox 3000 series mini-PC with an external CF IDE slot. It boots up
fine with a CF formated with MS-DOS 6.22. That is how I got my TA.exe file.
Once I built the XPe image, I tested it on my development station, and it
works fine. The only difference was in settings of the target hardware.

I used a simple copy of the image to the CF, no good. Everybody tells me
this is all I have to do. It sure isn't working for me.

I tried using the ufdprep.exe software provided by Microsoft, and then copy
the image to the CF, no good. This however gave me the blue halt screen. I
tried using the SDI2HD technique, and the image seems to successfully be
installed. At least, I can seem them. I tried checking the parition after
the SDI2HD to make sure it was a NTFS partition and active. It was. This
technique just gave me a blinking cursor. So far, nothing I have done seems
to work. Someone suggested checking the BOIS for changing a few fields.
However, the fields he suggested was not associated with the ebox.

For fun, I even tried building an image in FAT and FAT32. No good. I even
tried using Fdisk /MBA to try fixing the partition, as well as using
Partition Magic 8.0 tools

I'm ready for any new ideas. This is the only thing stopping from finishing
this project.

Any suggestions??????????????
Briffee
 
ufdprep.exe is only for USB flash keys. For CF cards, you should format with
DOS and then run bootprep.exe to change the boot sector from DOS to NT.

If you want an NTFS, you will need to format the card under Windows XP pro
using a IDE to CF adapater. A few can be found here:
http://www.seanliming.com/flashhelp.html. This assumes that the card is ID'd
as fixed and not removable.

Regards,

Sean Liming
www.sjjmicro.com / www.seanliming.com
XP Embedded Book Author - XP Embedded Advanced, XP Embedded Supplemental
Toolkit
 
Briffee,

Looks like you have tried many different things and some of them are not really relevant to the issue.
Btw, it would help much if you mentioned the exact behavior and the errors you're observing after you performed the steps you
outlined.

What I couldn't get from your post is how you formatted the CF with MS-DOS (this implies you formatted it with FAT!) and then tried
to boot a *NTFS* based image after simply copying the image files?

Just make sure you check the following things:
- your image includes the FS (file system) component you are formatting your CF card in.
- your CF is marked as fixed.
- set a non-zero timeout in the boot.ini file. This will help you to determine whether you can get to the ntldr (if you see the
loader menu).
- *partitioning* and formatting the CF under DOS is probably the best approach (bullet-proof) but then you are limited to FAT FS.
you can later convert it to NTFS though with convert.exe utility.
- Personally I like WinPE/XPe approach where I can use tools like MbrFix (read more here:
http://km-dev.blogspot.com/2007/04/xpe-tip-22-disk-read-error.html)

It the above doesn't help, please post the exact errors or behavior or the target device you see when you try to boot it.
 
Thanks for everybodies help. I was placed on another task now I am back to
solving this problem. I'll let you know what happens.

Thanks again.
 
Sean,
By the way, I do have your book. I did know that uddprep was for USB flash,
and I would mind if I even got that to work. I will try bootprep again.
 
Well, I tried the simple formating the CF with DOS and than ran bootprep. I
created the image to FAT and copied it to the CF ( simple copy). I placed it
into the ebox and I got the blue screen of death. " A problem has been
detected and windows has been shut down to prevent dmage to your computer"....

Thanks for trying to help
Brian.
 
You got to BSOD - this is a good indication you at least made the CF bootable :-)

What was the BSOD number?
 
Here are my notes from 2003 on how I initially set up a CF card w/ NTFS.
I saved old cards so when I want to try a new XP build, I just delete the
files and copy the new ones.
Now adays, I use a USB2.0 to IDE adaptor plugged into my PC that runs TD.
I will add that I use "Partition Manager Professional" to look at my
partitions because that's the only way I can hunt down and clear out any of
those mini Partitions that the EWF add to the card.

Here you go: Good luck!

Setting up a CF card with XP Embedded

Revised 12/19/2003 David Ditch



Requirements

A Target system with a 40 Pin IDE header and 1 HD Drive loaded with XP Pro
and a second drive set up with a Compact flash to IDE converter from
http://www.mesanet.com.

Main Drive set up with XP Pro should be fully installed with all the
appropriate drivers loaded.

You must have the ability to switch which drive the system boots to either
by changing the Master/Slave jumper on the HD and the IDE to CF converter
board, or by selecting the first boot drive in the Bios.

CF card must be set to non-removable media. Currently to get a CF card that
is set to non-removable, you have to either use a special utility from
Sandisk (there can be issues with this), or buy one special from a CF card
manufacturer. The Transcend cards we order should be like this. Also Unigen
can do this as well (Jaco Electronics reps them)



a.. Build your OS in Target Designer
b.. Boot the system to the XP Pro drive and a Blank CF card in the CD to
IDE converter board.
c.. Right click My Computer and then select Manage
d.. Click Disk Management
e.. Delete the partition for the CF Drive (D: usually)
f.. Reboot (I have found that failure to reboot at this point sometimes
causes failures in the boot of XPe later on)
g.. Right click My Computer and then select Manage
h.. Click Disk Management
i.. Right Click CF Drive (D: usually) and select "New Partition"
j.. Select Primary Partition
k.. Select Next when disk size is shown Select Next (Assigning drive
letter)
l.. Format w/ NTFS, Default Allocation, Volume : XPE
m.. Click Finish
n.. Wait until it shows Partion as "(Healthy)
o.. Right click and make partion Active
p.. Reboot.
q.. After rebooting, verify there is a folder called "System Volume
Information"
r.. Copy Xpe Pre FBA image onto CF card (Takes 5-15 minutes depending on
size, computer speed, and CF speed)
s.. Insert the CF card into the target device and let XP boot
t.. Let FBA run
u.. Reboot the system at least once so that XP remembers a successful
startup.
v.. To reduce the CF footprint, Boot the system with the XP Pro HD, Then
compress the c:\Windows folder and sub folders.
w.. Boot drive in the Target again and Verify you can enable and disable
EWF using EWFMGR.EXE
 
Try this first: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms940177.aspx
Or this: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/embedded/aa731218.aspx

It is also possible that the BIOS on your device fails to properly enumerate USB bootable devices. You may want to check on the
motherboard manufacturer website whether they have new updates for the BIOS.
Also, try to use USBNTD.CHK - debug version of ntdetect.com - to see more detail info at the boot time while booting off USB device.
More info here: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa940877.aspx
 
Right now, I'm using a Compact Flash. I'll check out these sites, and try to
contact the manufacture.
 
Thanks,
I understand the problem now. I was using TA. I just got the full
evaluation kit in the mail. I will try using WinPE and TAP. I do understand
from your site that XP Pro would be better.
Thanks,
 
Yup, you're right (just checked the initial post on the thread). No reason to worry about USB boot capable BIOS.
However, since you started with TA you are probably missing boot critical components (some of them listed in the first two links
posted earlier).
If you ran TA under WinPE or XP Pro you wouldn't lose those components. However, please keep in mind that the TAP output under those
OS is quite extensive and if you plan to optimize image footprint the TA input (+ the missing components) may be a better start.
 
I was able to get an XPe Image to boot (FAT). I am aware about the
limitations with WinPE and TAP from your site. I passed this information on
up the change of command. I believe they are looking into a more compact
completed systems which could handle XP Pro, and will still be compact
enough. My first image wasn't correct, but I can at least play around and
move forward.

Thanks for your help.
 
I was successfully able to get an XPe Image running with my C++ application.
I need to install supporting software, and it seems not to want to install
PowerPointViewer2007. Also, I will need Window Media Player 11 too. I
believe this one is not being installed because I'm using an evalutation copy
and the installation is doing a OS verification. Right now, I'm glad to get
pass building an CF XPe image.

Thanks,
Brian.
 
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