Target Designer, Target Device Settings

[hinter]

I'm new to XPe and Embedded Studio. I've been reading some articles on
the Web and in this group.

I'm trying to make an XPe bootable hard drive for use on a headless
Pentium II system. I've been struggling with this for a couple weeks
and I can't get an image to boot on my target device. I can make one
that boots on my development PC with no problem.

I have the Headless VGA component. That's not the issue. My target
device does not recognize the deployment drive as being bootable. I
have proven the hard drive is good.

It's worth mentioning that my target device is a TRUELY headless
system. It's a custom single board computer with no video support at
all. It has a com port, a network port, and a few indicator lights.
Previously it ran Windows NT Embedded.

The BIOS reports out the com port that there is no bootable device
present. It is General Software BIOS v4.3 if that helps anyone. I have
an e-mail into GS, but no reply yet. It may be that my BIOS can't
support XPe - I'm hoping they can tell me. In the mean time, I'm trying
other settings.

In Target Designer, the Target Device settings are just like they are
in the tutorial.

Boot Drive D:
Windows Folder D:\WINDOWS
Program Files Folder D:\Program Files
Documents and Settings Folder D:\Documents and Settings
Boot ARC Path
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)
Boot partition size 5000
Partition cluster size 4096

That works fine when I build an image that boots on my dev system.
However, on my target device, the hard drive will be drive C. It is not
clear to me how these settings are used. Should I be using C:? Is the
normal approach to have FBA run on the target device? Is it expected
that FBA would run on a PC, then once everything is done the drive gets
moved to the target device?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Gary

 

[Sandro]

Have you made sure that the partition you are instaling the image to, is
marked as active?
I forgot this one a couple of times, so i just tought i'd throw it in.

and if you can.
if you have a FAT partition, try and run bootprep on the target device.

sorry if it does not help.
i'm new at this too.

Sandro.

 

[Sean Liming \(eMVP\)]

1. You only change the driver letters and arc path when you wnat XPe to boot
from another partition. Otherwise you can leave the default. In the case of
your target system, leave the default settings: c:

2. Make sure the drive is partitioned, marked active, format with NTFS or
FAT. Make sure that you have the support for NTFS or FAT in the image. If
you format under MS-DOS, you will need to run bootprep. How are you
preparing the hard drive? How are you transfer the XPe image to the target
hard drive?

3. The Headless VGA driver component needs to be in the configuration.

4. General Software provides a nice custom BIOS solution. Depending on how
the BIOS was configured, there might be an extra module required to support
XPe.

Regards,

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

 

[twicave]

In Target Designer, the Target Device settings are just like they are
in the tutorial.

Boot Drive D:
Windows Folder D:\WINDOWS
Program Files Folder D:\Program Files
Documents and Settings Folder D:\Documents and Settings
Boot ARC Path
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)
Boot partition size 5000
Partition cluster size 4096

That works fine when I build an image that boots on my dev system.
However, on my target device, the hard drive will be drive C. It is not
clear to me how these settings are used. Should I be using C:? Is the
normal approach to have FBA run on the target device? Is it expected
that FBA would run on a PC, then once everything is done the drive gets
moved to the target device?

If in the taget device, the drive letter is "C", then the target device
setting in Target Designer also will be set to "C".

"Boot Drive" indicates where "boot.ini,NtDetct,ntldr..." should reside(at
which partition)
It should be set to "C:"

"Windows Folder","Programe Files Folder","Documents and Settings Folder" is
used for register generating progress.It will replace all "%System Folder%"
etc.
They should be set to "C:\..."

Boot Arc Path you offered seems not right. It should be
"multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)"

If you want FBA done at development environment,
you must offer a partition or a disk(It's driver letter should be "C") for
XPE.