Can I boot from the CF card slot?
-
- Administrator
- Posts: 569
- Joined: Tue Mar 24, 2009 9:11 pm
Can I boot from the CF card slot?
No one has successfully accomplished this as of yet. Boot from a USB drive (cd-rom, thumb drive, usb hard drive) or the internal flash memory aka "hard drive 1" in the bios.
-
- Administrator
- Posts: 144
- Joined: Sat Mar 28, 2009 2:27 am
- Location: NewYork's 1st Capitol
- Contact:
Can it be accomplished via Grub?
Here I go again.
What we really need to open these units up:
What we really need to open these units up:
- Linux on Boot USB with Functioning Touch Panel and virtual Keyboard.
Nothing is ever easy, but if it is difficult you must be doing it wrong.
My Wife's invention Doll Carrier
My Wife's invention Doll Carrier
-
- Administrator
- Posts: 569
- Joined: Tue Mar 24, 2009 9:11 pm
Re: Can I boot from the CF card slot?
Good questions,
I tried five different ways of doing something similar. Each failed. Each time I tried a /boot partition as the first partition on the internal flash. Then swap and the rest on the flash card. Each time the graphical partitioner saw all the targets and indicated it had it finished. However upon inspection things went terribly wrong. What I got did not match what I ordered. In one case the cf card was changed to swap when I told the partition util that it was to be ext3.
This was using a live cd from a usb cdrom.
Has anyone else experienced similar or different?
quotaholic
I tried five different ways of doing something similar. Each failed. Each time I tried a /boot partition as the first partition on the internal flash. Then swap and the rest on the flash card. Each time the graphical partitioner saw all the targets and indicated it had it finished. However upon inspection things went terribly wrong. What I got did not match what I ordered. In one case the cf card was changed to swap when I told the partition util that it was to be ext3.
This was using a live cd from a usb cdrom.
Has anyone else experienced similar or different?
quotaholic
Re: Can I boot from the CF card slot?
I imagine swap would eat a cf card alive . I know installing xp on a cf without ewf enabled will kill a flash in about a week.
-
- Administrator
- Posts: 569
- Joined: Tue Mar 24, 2009 9:11 pm
Re: Can I boot from the CF card slot?
In ext3 there are partition options (depending on partition util) that allow you to prevent write backs. Although that was my aim it never happened. Good to know about xp! I read a few forums of guys running fanless itx based servers running off flash cards and ide adapters. A few of them reported 6 months and running on a flash card linux. Most of them prevented write backs.
quotaholic
quotaholic
Re: Can I boot from the CF card slot?
thats the trick preventing the writebacks if you run it all full on they die pretty quick.
-
- Developer
- Posts: 84
- Joined: Wed Apr 01, 2009 3:13 pm
Re: Can I boot from the CF card slot?
OK I did a simple but conclusive test to prove you can not boot from CF (without hacking bios at least).
1) Made bootable CF card (actually win98 with ghost)
2) Proved it booted OK using it as an external USB HDD
USB --> External HD Enclosure --> Addonics CF-IDE Adapter --> CF Card
3) Set Bios to boot from USB, CDROM, HDD2
4) Insert CF and boot
Fails with unable to find boot device.
This is both good and bad, the bad side is that to bot we will need to use USB or internal flash at least to get CF drivers working before a chroot.
The good is that since HD2 is not the CF, the internal connector for Flash is probably capable of master and slave so it may be possible to connect two devices to this with the correct cable and wiring.
Dave.
1) Made bootable CF card (actually win98 with ghost)
2) Proved it booted OK using it as an external USB HDD
USB --> External HD Enclosure --> Addonics CF-IDE Adapter --> CF Card
3) Set Bios to boot from USB, CDROM, HDD2
4) Insert CF and boot
Fails with unable to find boot device.
This is both good and bad, the bad side is that to bot we will need to use USB or internal flash at least to get CF drivers working before a chroot.
The good is that since HD2 is not the CF, the internal connector for Flash is probably capable of master and slave so it may be possible to connect two devices to this with the correct cable and wiring.
Dave.
-
- Administrator
- Posts: 569
- Joined: Tue Mar 24, 2009 9:11 pm
Re: Can I boot from the CF card slot?
Thank you for that Dave, I had always thought that hd2 was the cf slot but with a raised eyebrow if you know what I mean.
great info!
quotaholic
great info!
quotaholic
Re: Can I boot from the CF card slot?
I took apart one of my WebDT GX 366s' and located some interesting points on the motherboard. HDD2 is actually a CF style set of pads under the main Compact Flash slot. There is not enough room to install an internal CF slot and put a card in it. This explains why there is a 'Boot from HDD2' option in the BIOS. There is a questionable switch on the motherboard. Its a SPDT switch, and wen set to the the non-default position I dont see any noticable boot order change. I was hoping it would bring the onboard CF card to live bridged over HDD2, but it didnt. One thing I did notice is that my right speaker was making a hissing noise as if it was picking up some EMF from something.
I will post detailed pics and information with my findings in a few days, please be patient.
I will post detailed pics and information with my findings in a few days, please be patient.
Hacking is not a crime, It's a passion - www.BSoDtv.org
If you need someone to IDE mod your DT366 toss me a PM.
If you need someone to IDE mod your DT366 toss me a PM.
Re: Can I boot from the CF card slot?
Correct.
Hacking is not a crime, It's a passion - www.BSoDtv.org
If you need someone to IDE mod your DT366 toss me a PM.
If you need someone to IDE mod your DT366 toss me a PM.
Re: Can I boot from the CF card slot?
I have verified that the DT366 Compact Flash is not bootable, even though it is on the USB Bus. It is not tied into the IDE. Unfortunately I removed my CF header and placed one on HDD2 assuming it was CF compliant, and it is not. It blew out my card. Oh well, at least we learned something from the FUBAR.
I will post more details when I have them.
I will post more details when I have them.
Hacking is not a crime, It's a passion - www.BSoDtv.org
If you need someone to IDE mod your DT366 toss me a PM.
If you need someone to IDE mod your DT366 toss me a PM.
-
- Full Member
- Posts: 112
- Joined: Fri Apr 24, 2009 5:20 pm
- Location: Sussex, New Brunswick, CAN
Re: Can I boot from the CF card slot?
Is it possible that HDD2 is 5V whereas HDD1 is 3.3V? If that where the case it would be possible to use an IDE HDD.
Is there not some place where we can get some of this technical info. What about the company that actually manufactures these units?
Bruce
Is there not some place where we can get some of this technical info. What about the company that actually manufactures these units?
Bruce
plane_crazy
-
- Administrator
- Posts: 569
- Joined: Tue Mar 24, 2009 9:11 pm
Re: Can I boot from the CF card slot?
One requires a support contract for even talking to DT Research. They do not support older models that have reached end of life cycle. On the DT360 platform member evilBob has figured out a way to use a 64mb internal flash in combination with a CF card to install a full linux distribution, Kubuntu, to his 360.