Boot CD/AMI BIOS

[DPM]

All,

Does anyone know if there are known problems with El-Torito boot CDs and
Intel motherboards that use an AMI BIOS?

I built a bootable image that should work fine, but always halts with stop
code 7B. Motherboard uses a 945G chipset and AMI BIOS V1.04.

Any advice appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Dave R.]

All,

Does anyone know if there are known problems with El-Torito boot CDs
and Intel motherboards that use an AMI BIOS?

I built a bootable image that should work fine, but always halts with
stop code 7B. Motherboard uses a 945G chipset and AMI BIOS V1.04.

Any advice appreciated. Thanks.

I've not had any problems with El-Torito boot CDs and 945G based boards,
but these were Dell PCs so I don't really know about the BIOS. OTOH, I
have had issues with El-Torito boot CDs if I burn them at high speed -
actually, I routinely have issues if I burn them at anything higher than
about 8x. I routinely set my burner down to its lowest speed to avoid
this problem. Might be worth a try.

Regards,

Dave

 

[DPM]

Dave,

I'm using CD-RW disks, and burn them at 4X. I tried a CD-R and it failed
too, but I can't remember what speed I used.

Thanks for thinking about me, though.

Regards,
Dean

 

[Dave R.]

Dave,

I'm using CD-RW disks, and burn them at 4X. I tried a CD-R and it
failed too, but I can't remember what speed I used.

Thanks for thinking about me, though.

No problem. I noticed that the experts hadn't made any suggestions
here, so I figured I'd see if I could add anything.

Anyway, to test whether El-Torito compatibility is a part of the problem
you could make a very basic El-Torito CD and see if you can get it to
boot from that. Or, see if you can boot from a Windows PE CD if you
have one laying around. Isn't the 2nd CD in the embedded toolkit a
bootable PE CD?

Regards,

Dave

 

[DPM]

No problem. I noticed that the experts hadn't made any suggestions here,
so I figured I'd see if I could add anything.

Anyway, to test whether El-Torito compatibility is a part of the problem
you could make a very basic El-Torito CD and see if you can get it to boot
from that. Or, see if you can boot from a Windows PE CD if you have one
laying around. Isn't the 2nd CD in the embedded toolkit a bootable PE CD?

Regards,

Dave

WinPE boots with no problem. But an XPe CD is different from a WinPE CD;
from
http://msdn.microsoft.com/chats/transcripts/mobileembedded/06_0614_msdn_winxp.aspx:

"WinPE uses a different implementation of the CD-boot architecture that has
less stringent requirements. For one, WinPE is designed specifically for
CD-boot environments, and it makes no attempt to use its boot media as a
writeable partition. El Torito, on the other hand, is a way to get a full OS
to boot from CD, and it's very finicky about having everything "exactly
right", which is why some chipsets can't run it.
When you boot WinPE, it is often identified as a "Floppy-Type", meaning that
its boot implementation is akin to that of a floppy. An El-Torito CD is a
"HDD-Type", which basically sets up the CD-ROM device as a bootable,
NON-REMOVABLE device."

So successful WinPE booting is no guarantee that XPe can boot.

Regards,

Dean

 

[Stefan Klein]

I do have such a device (old laptop) that can boot up all "normal"
el-toritos but not XPe. It just skips the boot media after some seconds
and boots the next device, no bluescreen. I personally don't think your
bluescreen is caused by el-torito issues. There's something wrong with
your Target Designer configuration. I once had a faulty 'devices' macro
component that just needed to be updated/recreated.

Use virtual machines to test your cds. It should be much faster than
recording them all the time to cd-rws. Always keep an essential
configuration (before dependency check) so you can change hardware
macros (device) when needed.

 

[Dave R.]

WinPE boots with no problem. But an XPe CD is different from a WinPE
CD; from
http://msdn.microsoft.com/chats/transcripts/mobileembedded/06_0614_msdn_winxp.aspx:

"WinPE uses a different implementation of the CD-boot architecture
that has less stringent requirements. For one, WinPE is designed
specifically for CD-boot environments, and it makes no attempt to use
its boot media as a writeable partition. El Torito, on the other hand,
is a way to get a full OS to boot from CD, and it's very finicky about
having everything "exactly right", which is why some chipsets can't
run it.
When you boot WinPE, it is often identified as a "Floppy-Type",
meaning that its boot implementation is akin to that of a floppy. An
El-Torito CD is a "HDD-Type", which basically sets up the CD-ROM
device as a bootable, NON-REMOVABLE device."

So successful WinPE booting is no guarantee that XPe can boot.

See why I waited to see if the experts would post before I did?

Anyway, I'm pretty much out of ideas, but I hope you can get it
resolved.

Regards,

Dave