Blank screen - No First Boot Agen

[Guest]

Hi.

Building a Windows XPe Image sure isn't easy. All the suddent I've gotten a
new problem. After turning on the computer i get a blank screen. No first
boot agent, no error no nothing.

I'm testing this with the "WinLogon Sample Macro", and have made sure i have
the following components:

ï‚· PCI standard host CPU bridge
ï‚· PCI standard ISA bridge
ï‚· Plug and Play Software Device Enumerator
ï‚· Primary IDE Channel
ï‚· Secondary IDE Channel
ï‚· Disk Drive
ï‚· Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller
ï‚· Standard IDE/ESDI Hard Disk Controller

I have no idea why this is happening... I've had this device booting before,
but not 100% sure if it was the exact same setup. Could i be doing something
obvious wrong? Could the problem be the Compact Flash card? I've
deleted/copied files several times with out re-formatting the card (dont want
to do that, since i'll have to run bootprep again)

 

[Slobodan Brcin \(eMVP\)]

Hi Jonas,

You have either deleted MBR code from first sector on disk
Or you have bad geometry in BPB sector on your boot partition.

For CF make sure that you use:
1. Real DOS (from diskete on your target computer)
2. Use fdisk to partition disk and set active partition.
3. Use format to format disk.
4. Usef bootprep to make it XPe bootable.
5. Go on development machine and copy XPe files.

Regards,
Slobodan

 

[KM]

Let me add Slobodan's favorite tip here

After you've gone through the steps outlined below...
Before copying and testing with the entire XPe image, just copy ntldr, ntdetect.com and boot.ini to the target. Set non-zero timeout
in the boot.ini and see if you can get to the Loader menu first. If you can, you are good to move forward to the XPe image.

 

[Guest]

I've performed the steps listed below, and deployed the image to the compact
flash card.

The strange thing is that the problem reamins. Looks like it has a problem
switching screen modes when "loading" first boot agent. BIOS info, some
flickering, and then blank screen. Sometimes, if i miss something in the
image, i get an error, so obviously the screen is working... :|

 

[Slobodan Brcin \(eMVP\)]

Jonas,

Have you tried my "favorite" tip as Konstantin mentioned it?


Just put follwing boot.ini, plesae describe to us what do you see exactly
with this boot.ini step by step. If you do not see anything then it is some
non XPe related problem. (related to hardware,BIOS, ntldr)

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows Test1"
/noexecute=optin /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows Test2"
/noexecute=optin /fastdetect

Regards,
Slobodan

 

[Guest]

Wow! This is wierd. I tryed "re-setting" the computer to it's state when it
last worked. So, the only hardware change i've made is exchanging one of the
64MB RAM modules with a 256RAM module. Removing the 256RAM module made the
screen/FBA load again...

Make any sense?

 

[Guest]

Haha. Looks like i'ved tryed using SO-DIMM PC130 RAM instead of PC100. But,
BIOS did detect both the 64MB PC100 and the 128MB PC130 ram modules. Do this
mean that PC130 is supported on the mother boarD? Can i use PC130? Can i mix
PC100 and PC130?

 

[Slobodan Brcin \(eMVP\)]

Jonas,

What is supported by MB is written in MB specifications. Find and read them.
Generally it is bad idea to use different memory modules on same MB.

Regards,
Slobodan

 

[Guest]

Yeah, you're probably right.

The funny thing is that last night i managed to build an image containing
..NET Framework 1.1 that would boot off a 256 memory card, with out paging
file, and only 128MB ram. The component i removed to get the image small
enough was the "Class Installers / Hardware Compatibility" component.