CF Mass Production

[Richard]

I'm out of development and ready to start burning a bunch of Sandisk CF.

My Development laptop uses a USB CF Writer which I normally use to copy my
images to CF.
Previously, during development, I would format the CF on the Target and run
the Bootprep, then stick the CF into the Development machines USB CF Writer,
copy the files, then it was pretty much finished.

My image is a golden Post FBA Image that does not do the clone.

My Question is, Can I run Bootprep from a dos window, to prepare the CF in
the USB Writer? I've tried and it doesn't seem to work and none of the
production machines have floppy drives. How is the best way to make the CF
Bootable?

Richard

 

[Slobodan Brcin \(eMVP\)]

Richard,

Just copy content of one whole disk to the other. No need for bootpreping and other things.
Make your small program for this or use third party programs like ghost sdimgr, etc.

Regards,
Slobodan

 

[Richard]

I can copy the images fine. But if I do not run bootprep, the image will
not boot.
I have tried to do it with the format already on the CF, and I have tried to
format using XP Pro. Should I use FAT or FAT32? I tried both with no luck.

Richard

 

[Slobodan Brcin \(eMVP\)]

Hi Richard,

Do you have master CF that is bootable?
You make image file from that CF right?
You record this image file to other same CF's right?

Can you describe process that you tried to use?

Regards,
Slobodan

 

[Richard]

I created an image and installed it on CF.
Let Image run thru FBA process. Installed other software and tested.

Copied Post FBA image from CF to Hard Drive on Dev machine.
Now use Windows Explorer to copy all files to new CF .
Try to Boot and says system disk not found.

Now, if I take a brand new Sandisk and put it on the Target, boot from
floppy and run fdisk. Delete Partitions, Create Partition, Write MBR, then
Format, then run bootprep, then copy my Golden image it works fine.

There should be a way to do this all from Windows?

Richard

 

[Slobodan Brcin \(eMVP\)]

Richard let me try again.

This procedure is completely wrong. You need to use some utility to copy disk content (not files) to one image file.
Then with same tool you need to copy that file to other devices.

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=...a=group=microsoft.public.windowsxp.embedded.*

Regards,
Slobodan

 

[Richard]

Sorry, let me try and make this more clear.

I open a brand new SanDisk CF. I insert it into my Dev Machine via a USB CF
Writer. I copy my image to it.
I move the CF to the Target and the target will not boot.

The "Only" way I can make it boot is to boot the Target from Floppy, and Run
Bootprep /dc then reboot the target. It will then boot fine into XPe.

What I'm asking, is there a way to do all of this from the Dev machine from
within XP Pro, so I don't have to do the floppy deal ?

Richard

 

[Slobodan Brcin \(eMVP\)]

I copy my image to it.

When you say copy image what do you mean (exact procedure) by that?

Regards,
Slobodan

 

[Richard]

Okay, let me check into that. Something else to buy.

Look at MS Link...
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d...ootingrun-timeimagefromcompactflashdevice.asp

Richard let me try again.

This procedure is completely wrong. You need to use some utility to copy

disk content (not files) to one image file.

 

[Mark K Vallevand]

Have you tried using an IDE-to-CF adapter? Then, the CF device looks like a
disk drive attached to IDE. Using a USB-to-CF adapter, the CF device looks
like a disk attached to USB and windows handles that differently. I always
create my CF devices using IDE-to-CF adapter. I have a script that uses
bootprep and xcopy to do that. When the CF is correct, and I declare it
'golden', I use a sector copy program to save the image. The sector copy
program works fine with USB-to-CF adapters and I create all my post-golden
images that way. I wrote the sector copy program myself.

 

[Slobodan Brcin \(eMVP\)]

This link is not for a production purposes but rather it is used to copy post FBA image made on HDD to CF. (This procedure is
usually faster and safe your CF life time)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d...xpehelp/html/xeconrun-timeimagedeployment.asp

Regards,
Slobodan

 

[Richard]

IDE to CF is out since it's laptop. Golden Image is already prepared and is
ready to make a "Disk Image".
Your sector Copy program isn't available as shareware is it? <grin>

I'll be off to town later after lunch to buy Ghost I guess. Hopefully it
see's a USB Removable device, because Disk Image doesn't.

Richard

 

[Richard]

Well, $70 wasted on Norton Ghost.
It will not backup files on removable media either!!!

 

[Slobodan Brcin \(eMVP\)]

Hi Richard,

I put some copy util that I wrote long time ago for my internal use. It will work, but unfortunately there are no warnings when you
do some operations. And if you select wrong diskpath it will be disasterous.

You can download it from www.xpefiles.com

Regards,
Slobodan

 

[Richard]

Thanks, I will give it a try. I'm getting pretty frustrated here. Time to
go cool off.

Hi Richard,

I put some copy util that I wrote long time ago for my internal use. It

will work, but unfortunately there are no warnings when you

 

[Stuart Langley]

Hi Richard,

We wrote an internal sector copy app, that will either (a) take an image
from the CF and save to HD, or (b) copy an image from HD to a CF, and it
will even gang program if using a USB hub and multiple readers. On a USB 2
CF reader it takes approx 40 seconds to do a full clone of a 128MB CF card.

Although I can not share this with you, if you have some programming skills
it should not take more than a day or 2 to knock up something like this. The
only trick that we found is unmounting/mounting the volume before and after
writing so that explorer picks it all up properly.

If you need the basic algorithm let me know.

Regards,

Stuart

 

[KM]

Just to add one more option to the thread: WinHex. It will allow you to save/restore removable media sectors.
http://www.x-ways.net/winhex/index-m.html

The "saving" version is not free, though :-(

 

[Slobodan Brcin \(eMVP\)]

Ups I forgot to mention that. I guess that I thought that his CF's will be always empty.

Richard my tool won't do you any good (data might get corrupted) if you copy to CF that has valid FS on it. You will first have to
zero first sector. Reconnect device and then do copy.
Or like Stuart said make application that will: unmount FS and then copy image.

Regards,
Slobodan

 

[Stuart Langley]

Yep, we use win hex to view 2nd, 3rd and 4th partitions when connecting a
partitioned CF card via CF reader.

I haven't figured out if you can add files to these partitions with the
tool, but it will let you extract them, browse directories etc.

It is not difficult to write a tool to do it... even a quick command line
version that allow you to select a drive and a file to read from/write to.
Open the drive using CreateFile, determine how many sectors you want to
copy, and read them out. We have found that sometimes when we insert a card
into a cheap CF reader, it might report an extra sector that does not exist.
For this reason we just read the MBR partition table, determine the last
sector in use and just dump out these sectors to the image.

Regards,

Stuart

 

[Slobodan Brcin \(eMVP\)]

Hi Richard,

Just to save you some time, you can use my tool for obtaining bootable CF or even for complete imaging.

To do one time only:
1. Create empty file zerofile.raw (all binary zeroes) with size of 4096 bytes.
2. Create empty (without files) FAT bootable CF from DOS.
3. Use my tool to copy beginning of CF (for instance 1 MB) or whole CF to file.

CopyUtil.exe \\.\X: "c:\richardcf.raw" 0 0 1048576 <----- This should be enough for MBR, PBR and FAT tables to get

to the image
Or:

CopyUtil.exe \\.\X "c:\richardcf.raw" 0 0 xxxxxx <------ Size of whole CF in bytes. (This must be dividable by 512 (x % 512) =

0)

To do for complete imaging of CF:
1. Insert new CF.
2. Use: CopyUtil.exe "c:\zerofile.raw" \\.\X 0 0 4096 <------ This should invalidate your FS on CF so XP will not mount it.
3. Unplug CF.
4. Plug CF again. (Now CF is blank no FS on it)
5. Use CopyUtil.exe "c:\richardcf.raw" \\.\X: 0 0 xxxxxx <----- This should match your file size.
6. Unplug CF.

At this point depending on content of richardcf.raw (1MB or full CF size) you will have either empty bootable CF with FS on it, or
you will have CF with full image on it.

If you made empty CF then just insert it back and do xcopy of files to CF.

Hope that this will help you.

Regards,
Slobodan
PS:
If you need guide lines for using Win32 to make tool that will image one or more CF at the same time without the need of Insert and
Reinsert, please let us know here I will give you some Win32 API functions and IOCTL codes that you will need to use.