EPIA ML Board, with microdrive

[Glyn Davies]

Hi all,

Has anyone had any success with XPe and The VIA EPIA ML range of
boards?
Specifically with a 4Gb Hitachi microdrive.

These boards ship with a CF adapter built onto the boards.
They have a CF --> USB adapter connected to this, and the BIOS will
allow
you to boot off the CF card by selecting USB-HDD boot.

After much experimentation I managed to discover the following:
Formatted FAT16: NTLDR goes ok, infamous Stop 7B - suspect because USB
drivers are not loaded
Formatted FAT32: No NTLDR - fails with a 'disk read error'
Formatted NTFS : No NTLDR - fails with a 'disk read error'

Trying to connect the drive via a CF--> IDE adapter, XP will allow
installation on it
but fails on the first time boot. (XP Media Center edition)

FAT16/32 or NTFS versions all failed to boot it as well.
Tried the different 'modes' ie LBA, CHS, etc

Oh yes, WinXP PE Boot (Embedded disk 1) fails to boot if no IDE drive
is plugged in
(but the microdrive is on the USB/CF port)


Anyone got any hints?

I think someone at microsoft needs to document how to get USB booting
running
with XPe. I'd love to be able to deploy on penkeys or CF Flash, but I
suspect
there are major issues with 'critical devices'.


Cheers,

Glyn

 

[Guest]

I would suggest that you look into the excellent tutorials on this topic by
Dietmar.

Just do a search on Dietmar and USB on this newsgroup.