CF warning

[Ryan Riel]

I have been struggling to get any operating system on a CF
card for about two weeks. I had suspicions of the card
itself for a while but kept trying new solutions to get it
to work. I could read and write files to the card but
nothing would boot from it. It turns out that both cards
I had were bad and when I tried a new one it was real
easy. Make sure that your cards are good.

Good luck

Ryan

 

[Slobodan Brcin]

This is interesting.
If you could read and write files without error, then this means that CF is
not defected.
Having tested two cards makes it impossible that there is error at all. This
would mean that whole series of cards was somehow defected, theoretically
possible but ...

Just two questions:
1. Have you marked CF as non-removable(you need special utility from CF
manufacturer)
2. Also have you marked partition as active.


Best regards,
Slobodan

 

[Graham Broadbridge]

It sounds like you are using some utility to copy an exisiting working image
from one CF card to another CF card (i.e. norton ghost).

Most retail CF cards have a few bad sectors even when new. Ghost will
create an unbootable image on such cards.

Solution: Use Industrial grade cards (i.e. sandisk industrial spec) and
test each card for bad sectors before imaging.


Graham.

 

[Ryan Riel]

Did both of your suggestions for the old cards and the new
card. Old cards did not work new one worked very easily.
I don't know what to make of it either. I just gave up on
the old cards. All cards were from Sandisk 512mb and 1
gig. I don't know how they could read and write but not
boot. Strange but true.

 

[Slobodan Brcin]

What do you see when you try to boot?
Any message at all, Reboot, etc, something that could tell us what could be
problem.

What file system are you trying to use NTFS, or FAT?

Also are we talking about IDE or USB adapter for CF?


Best regards,
Slobodan