Hi folks, I'm having problems now with the Win32 syslinux in the 2.0.6 release when using it on various CompactFlash drives. These drives end up going into a Geode-based PC board with a built in CF slot. Now, before I run SYSLINUX.EXE on them, they are 32MB with a Toshiba part number showing up when the PC boots. They show up on as the Secondary Master. After I run SYSLINUX.EXE, they stay 32MB, but they then come up as a "CHH" part, and show up as Secondary Slave, and of course, don't work because all my scripts assume that the drive will be on hdc, not to mention that the CF has been corrupted to the point where things like FreeDOS can't read the flash anymore. So my question is this -- how would I go about diagnosing this problem and fix it? Alex Pavloff - apavloff at esatechnology.com ESA Technology ---- www.esatechnology.com ------- Linux-based industrial HMI ------ -------- www.esatechnology.com/5k -------
Alex Pavloff wrote:> Hi folks, > > I'm having problems now with the Win32 syslinux in the 2.0.6 release > when using it on various CompactFlash drives. These drives end up going > into a Geode-based PC board with a built in CF slot. > > Now, before I run SYSLINUX.EXE on them, they are 32MB with a Toshiba > part number showing up when the PC boots. They show up on as the > Secondary Master. After I run SYSLINUX.EXE, they stay 32MB, but they > then come up as a "CHH" part, and show up as Secondary Slave, and of > course, don't work because all my scripts assume that the drive will be > on hdc, not to mention that the CF has been corrupted to the point where > things like FreeDOS can't read the flash anymore. > > So my question is this -- how would I go about diagnosing this problem > and fix it? >You're not saying which version of Windows you're using, or which kind of BIOS, or about where these things "come up" as CHH parts. My first guess is that you have a severely screwed up Windows device driver effectively trashing your card. -hpa
> You're not saying which version of Windows you're using, or > which kind of BIOS, or about where these things "come up" as > CHH parts. > > My first guess is that you have a severely screwed up Windows > device driver effectively trashing your card.Its Windows 2000 -- the "come up" is when my embedded system's BIOS reports the flash as when its booting as an IDE. Some process of elimination with various CompactFlash units find that SYSLINUX.EXE doesn't break all the CompactFlash. There are various models of the CompactFlash, (all badged as Memorex flash), that work, but it appears that all the CompactFlast that's failing has a "Copyright 2000" on it, and reports itself to the BIOS in IDE mode as a 32MB CHH. So, the question then becomes "do I have a batch of broken flash unsuitable for use for in things other than digital cameras". More research is needed by me, but I'm thinking at this point that is not SYSLINUX, and if it is SYSLINUX, its exposing broken CF. Alex Pavloff - apavloff at esatechnology.com ESA Technology ---- www.esatechnology.com ------- Linux-based industrial HMI ------ -------- www.esatechnology.com/5k -------
> -----Original Message----- > From: H. Peter Anvin [mailto:hpa at zytor.com] > Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2003 4:15 PM > To: H. Peter Anvin > Cc: Alex Pavloff; syslinux at zytor.com > Subject: Re: [syslinux] Problems with Win32 syslinux> > Oh, yes: 2.07 contains some fixes for the Win32 installer. I > don't really know what they do, but you may want to try it out.It appears the fixes change the API used to determine whether or not the drive is removable or not, as well as remove a FlushFileBuffers() call. They don't seem to have any major changes in the way the program works. After testing all the Flash I have and running SYSLINUX.EXE on both type of CompactFlash with no problems, I suspect that we were just shipped an old batch of non-spec conforming CompactFlash that didn't implement the True-IDE access mode properly (despite the nice CF logo). I have no "32MB CHH" flash remaining, but it seems extremely unlikely that corruption of a CompactFlash would result in it ending up with a string containing the capacity of the CF. Alex Pavloff - apavloff at esatechnology.com ESA Technology ---- www.esatechnology.com ------- Linux-based industrial HMI ------ -------- www.esatechnology.com/5k -------
> -----Original Message----- > From: Lars Munch [mailto:lars at segv.dk] > Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2003 4:40 AM > To: Alex Pavloff > Cc: syslinux at zytor.com > Subject: Re: [syslinux] Problems with Win32 syslinux > > Have you compared how the CompactFlashs are > partitioned/formated? I have experienced problems in windows > 2000 if I try to erase all partitions and repartition it > again. After the repartition syslinux.exe runs fine but the > CompactFlashs are not bootable (no error message). To fix the > problem I erased *everything* on the flash using "dd" on > linux and partitioned it again on windows.I don't reformat or repartition the CompactFlash, as I just use a loop filesystems mounted readonly for the main system portion, and since I only have one user, I mount the FAT executable. Its definitely this one lot of CompactFlash that I have that's broken, with the problem being that its not properly negotiatating with the PC whether or not its an IDE master or slave. My system boots, expects to see the main drive at hdc, and has a few problems when it shows up at hdd. Out of my entire stock of 30 or so flashes, I have 5 that don't work, all with the same mfg code on the side. I'll send them back, or relegate them to use in cameras or what not. Sorry for raising the "ahhh! SYSLINUX is broken!" flag too soon, but conicidentally we first ran into this problem the day we put a new SYSLINUX system into use. Alex Pavloff - apavloff at esatechnology.com ESA Technology ---- www.esatechnology.com ------- Linux-based industrial HMI ------ -------- www.esatechnology.com/5k -------