boot problems with flash drive

[Guest]

I've got an image that works with a regular hard drive. Now I'm trying to
get the image to work with a SimpleTech 2.5" IDE Flash Drive (Part #
SLFLD25-2GBJI). I format the flash drive, create a partition, then copy the
target image on to it. The flash drive is operating as a slave. I then make
the drive the master, remove the other drives and reboot. It goes through
BIOS welcome screen, and then I get a black screen with a flashing underline.
No text or FBA messages. It doesn't go any further. I've tried formatting
the flash drive both NTFS and FAT32.

Like I said, if I do this with a regular hard drive, the FBA starts up and
configures everything and I've got a working XP embedded system.

I've also tried cloning the working hard drive to the flash drive, but I get
the same blank screen with flashing cursor.

After the flash drive fails to boot, it's usually trashed. I have to run
chkdsk to fix it and then reformat. It usually takes a couple of attempts to
get the drive formatted as well.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Guest]

My initial thought would be did you copy boot.ini, ntdetect and the ntldr
files to the drive root? Is the settings in boot.ini correct?

Richard

 

[Guest]

Those files do get put on the flash drive.
The boot.ini file contains:

[boot loader]
timeout=0
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Embedded"
/fastdetect

Also when I go into the BIOS setup, its seeing the flash drive.

 

[KM]

Jason,

You may want to try two things here you didn't mentioned you fixed after you switches from slave to master mode:
- Mark the partition as active (use diskpart command line tool)
- If the above doesn't help, please fix the MBR. Simply use MbrFix tool (http://www.sysint.no/Nedlasting/MbrFix.htm)

Please also set a non-zero timeout value in boot.ini file so that you know it is at least getting to the ntldr phase.

 

[Guest]

I saw the mbrfix tool mentioned on another thread that seemed related. I ran
it with the fixmbr switch and set a non-zero timeout in the boot.ini file.
It's running the first boot agent now.

I'm still a little confused about what caused the MBR problem. I though
when I reformatted the drive it would clear the MBR. I guess not!

thanks for your help,
Jason

 

[KM]

Jason,

Formatting *volume* (partition) doesn't change MBR. Only when you are playing around partition table is when MBR gets changed.

Also, always make sure you mark partition as active if you want to boot from it.