CompactFlash / EWF Problems

Hello all,
I have an interesting issue. I'm running a custom shell application on XPe
with the EWF enabled. This is a requirement. We have two CompactFlash cards
(A and B)loaded as fixed drives on the IDE bus. We boot off of A. Our
software looks for a file D:\File that would be on card B. We have two major
problems:

1. If I don't seal the image with B inserted, then inserting the card on a
subsequent boot causes the boot time to be significantly longer.

2. If I seal the image with B inserted, then the boot time is great. But if
at any point I replace B with another model of B (Extreme III instead of
Industrial), the system will not only take longer to boot, but my software
will not recognize the existence of a D: drive.

We can deal with the longer boot time, but it is important that we can put
any compactflash card in B and have the system recognize it. Is there a
problem with our setup, or is there maybe some way I can force XPe to find D
when I boot?

Thanks for your help, I'm totally stuck here.
-MJ

This problem has been out there before. You might want to search and see if
anyone has a solution.

Maybe there is a different solution: is it possible to place card B in a
PnP-CF slot and not an IDE slot?

Regards,

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


"MJ" <MJ@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:9DCD1FCD-4629-48D5-ABB3-C65541911010@microsoft.com...
> Hello all,
> I have an interesting issue. I'm running a custom shell application on
> XPe
> with the EWF enabled. This is a requirement. We have two CompactFlash
> cards
> (A and B)loaded as fixed drives on the IDE bus. We boot off of A. Our
> software looks for a file D:\File that would be on card B. We have two
> major
> problems:
>
> 1. If I don't seal the image with B inserted, then inserting the card on a
> subsequent boot causes the boot time to be significantly longer.
>
> 2. If I seal the image with B inserted, then the boot time is great. But
> if
> at any point I replace B with another model of B (Extreme III instead of
> Industrial), the system will not only take longer to boot, but my software
> will not recognize the existence of a D: drive.
>
> We can deal with the longer boot time, but it is important that we can put
> any compactflash card in B and have the system recognize it. Is there a
> problem with our setup, or is there maybe some way I can force XPe to find
> D
> when I boot?
>
> Thanks for your help, I'm totally stuck here.
> -MJ
>

Sean,
Haven't seen any solutions to it. I posted this question a while ago here
as well. I've been researching since, and can't find a way to fix it.

At this point, we are stuck with a fixed ide connection. I had one solution
in mind, but don't know how to do it. Defer the Windows built-in scan for
IDE drives (somehow) and then when my application is ready, do my own manual
Windows scan for IDE drives to rebuild the current device list. Is there any
way to do that?

The other possibility is that I'm missing some extra component in my load
that will make this work correctly. Are there any key components that would
not be automatically included by the dependencies? Our only limitation is
that we aren't supposed to use NTFS.

-Matt

"Sean Liming (eMVP)" wrote:

>
> This problem has been out there before. You might want to search and see if
> anyone has a solution.
>
> Maybe there is a different solution: is it possible to place card B in a
> PnP-CF slot and not an IDE slot?
>
> Regards,
>
> Sean Liming
> www.sjjmicro.com / www.seanliming.com
> XP Embedded Book Author - XP Embedded Advanced, XP Embedded Supplemental
> Toolkit.
>
>
> "MJ" <MJ@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:9DCD1FCD-4629-48D5-ABB3-C65541911010@microsoft.com...
> > Hello all,
> > I have an interesting issue. I'm running a custom shell application on
> > XPe
> > with the EWF enabled. This is a requirement. We have two CompactFlash
> > cards
> > (A and B)loaded as fixed drives on the IDE bus. We boot off of A. Our
> > software looks for a file D:\File that would be on card B. We have two
> > major
> > problems:
> >
> > 1. If I don't seal the image with B inserted, then inserting the card on a
> > subsequent boot causes the boot time to be significantly longer.
> >
> > 2. If I seal the image with B inserted, then the boot time is great. But
> > if
> > at any point I replace B with another model of B (Extreme III instead of
> > Industrial), the system will not only take longer to boot, but my software
> > will not recognize the existence of a D: drive.
> >
> > We can deal with the longer boot time, but it is important that we can put
> > any compactflash card in B and have the system recognize it. Is there a
> > problem with our setup, or is there maybe some way I can force XPe to find
> > D
> > when I boot?
> >
> > Thanks for your help, I'm totally stuck here.
> > -MJ
> >
>
>
>

I don't know of any missing components that could cause the problem. The
only other solution that comes to mind is mounting and unmounting the
volume. There is a realted article for HORM on MSDN that provides some
insight to this:

Dismounting Volumes in a Hibernate Once/Resume Many Configuration
http://msdn.microsoft.com/embedded/...nfiguration.asp

You might be able to mount the drive when the app is ready to use it.

Regards,

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


"MJ" <MJ@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:87D2153C-100C-4F69-BE67-FDF7DF87134F@microsoft.com...
> Sean,
> Haven't seen any solutions to it. I posted this question a while ago here
> as well. I've been researching since, and can't find a way to fix it.
>
> At this point, we are stuck with a fixed ide connection. I had one
> solution
> in mind, but don't know how to do it. Defer the Windows built-in scan for
> IDE drives (somehow) and then when my application is ready, do my own
> manual
> Windows scan for IDE drives to rebuild the current device list. Is there
> any
> way to do that?
>
> The other possibility is that I'm missing some extra component in my load
> that will make this work correctly. Are there any key components that
> would
> not be automatically included by the dependencies? Our only limitation is
> that we aren't supposed to use NTFS.
>
> -Matt
>
> "Sean Liming (eMVP)" wrote:
>
>>
>> This problem has been out there before. You might want to search and see
>> if
>> anyone has a solution.
>>
>> Maybe there is a different solution: is it possible to place card B in a
>> PnP-CF slot and not an IDE slot?
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Sean Liming
>> www.sjjmicro.com / www.seanliming.com
>> XP Embedded Book Author - XP Embedded Advanced, XP Embedded Supplemental
>> Toolkit.
>>
>>
>> "MJ" <MJ@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>> news:9DCD1FCD-4629-48D5-ABB3-C65541911010@microsoft.com...
>> > Hello all,
>> > I have an interesting issue. I'm running a custom shell application on
>> > XPe
>> > with the EWF enabled. This is a requirement. We have two CompactFlash
>> > cards
>> > (A and B)loaded as fixed drives on the IDE bus. We boot off of A. Our
>> > software looks for a file D:\File that would be on card B. We have two
>> > major
>> > problems:
>> >
>> > 1. If I don't seal the image with B inserted, then inserting the card
>> > on a
>> > subsequent boot causes the boot time to be significantly longer.
>> >
>> > 2. If I seal the image with B inserted, then the boot time is great.
>> > But
>> > if
>> > at any point I replace B with another model of B (Extreme III instead
>> > of
>> > Industrial), the system will not only take longer to boot, but my
>> > software
>> > will not recognize the existence of a D: drive.
>> >
>> > We can deal with the longer boot time, but it is important that we can
>> > put
>> > any compactflash card in B and have the system recognize it. Is there
>> > a
>> > problem with our setup, or is there maybe some way I can force XPe to
>> > find
>> > D
>> > when I boot?
>> >
>> > Thanks for your help, I'm totally stuck here.
>> > -MJ
>> >
>>
>>
>>