Formatting CF

[Simon Wilton]

I am using a 128Mb Sandisk CF.

I have made a bootable floppy under Windows 98 with the utilities I need. I
have marked it non-removable and partitioned it as 2M C: and the remainder
as D:. C: is marked active.

I then formatted C: and D:. C: is formatted FAT12, D: FAT16.

The problem::

I can't run BOOTPREP on it as FAT12 is not supported. I can't seem to get it
to format as anything else. Putting the card into a WIN2K machine, I can ask
it to format it as FAT32, but that fails.

What do I do? I want to stick with FAT.

TIA

Simon

 

[KM]

Simon,

Is there a reason why you need to format your first 2M patition in FAT12 but
not FAT16?

Have you thought of writing your own FAT12 boot sector which will jump to
ntldr? (as MS bootprep'ed boot sector does).
You may, for example, use this code
http://www.cse.unl.edu/~jgompert/OS/BOOT12.ASM.

KM

 

[Slobodan Brcin \(eMVP\)]

Konstantin,

Are you sure that loading first 512 bytes of ntldr and executing it would do
any good.
I thought that there was actually more code required (with undocumented
functionality) to load and init ntldr so it could be started.
Bootprep should place that code, right?

Regards,
Slobodan

 

[KM]

Slobodan,

I am not sure if it is possible to fit the code searching for ntldr in 512.
Frankly, I do not know what bootprep does (undocumented as you said). Especially taking into account the fact that ntldr could be
anywhere under the root of bootprep'ed partition. We all know that the boot sector code must find ntldr and file system data
structures such as the root directory, the FAT in the case of an MS-DOS FAT volume and only BIOS INT 13 interface is available to
the boot sector code at this stage of system boot up.

If a simple FAT[12] search for ntldr could not fit in 512 bytes (assembler-pro-guys may jump in here and let me know whether it's
possible), then simply FAT16 "DOS approach" may be taken (IO.SYS must be the first entry in the root directory. MSDOS.SYS must be on
entry number two). In other words, somehow put ntldr in a fixed position on the system (2M) partition - shouldn't be a problem - and
then write a boot sector code similar to the MS-DOS one that loads the ntldr from the fixed position using INT 13 and jumps to
execute it.
All the BPB, OEM ID, etc of the boot sector code should be of course FS and disk related.

Btw, there is fixboot tool available on XP Recovery Console. I am wondering if it supports FAT12 along with FAT16 and may repair the
FAT12 boot sector.

 

[Simon Wilton]

My problem is that the 2M partition formats as FAT12. I don't need as FAT12,
I don't even want it as FAT12. I want it as FAT16, but I don't seem to be
able to get it to. It does not seem to matter which operating system I
format it under it comes out as FAT12.

S

 

[Slobodan Brcin \(eMVP\)]

Hi Simon,
Try using Win PE or Windows XP on your target device to partition and format
your CF.
This will make boot record that load ntldr.

Also I don't think that FAT16 can't be created on partitions with that size
you can check that in FAT specification fatgen103 available from MS.

Regards,
Slobodan

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[KM]

Simon,

I don't know why you cannot create FAT16 partition. Don't see any limitations there.
Have you only tried MS Disk Manager? Then try switching to another tools like diskpart/fdisk, Partition Magic, Paragon Partition
Manager. These tools may be able to help you to re-partition and re-format the partition with FAT16.