Moving beyond "Tutorial: Building and Deploying a Run-Time Image"

[Guest]

To everyone,

I haven't checked back here in a little while. I just wanted to close out
his thread. I don't think the problem is fixed. But then there may not really
be a problem with the Windows XP Embedded. I was never able to get anything
going on the Target PC. I think its hardware is just not compatible, probably
the video, etc, because the Windows XP Embeded CD won't boot on it either. I
did manage to get what I wanted done on an alternate "target" PC.

Thanks to everyone who offered advise and help.

Joe

Hi Joe,

NTDETECT failed message is shown by ntldr. this mean that now you can copy image files to this disk.
bootprep makes possible that ntldr. is loaded on FAT FS created in DOS.
About OS image. In your scenario it must support FAT, NTFS support is optional.

Best regards,
Slobodan

Hi Slobodan,

I followed your list of steps, thought I'm not certain how the ntldr is supposed to load on a FAT fromatted disk

I put the HD in the Target PC. Formated it with a DOS disk. Ran the Bootprep.exe program. Then copied the NTLDR and Boot.ini files to the HD.

It booted up, and got past the "Verifying DMI Pool Data..." screen, but I get a NTDETECT failed... message and then the PC reboots, over and over.

So when I follow the step you listed. The HD is formatted as FAT. The Bootprep.exe makes it possible to load a NT/XP OS, is that

correct. If so, then do I have to use OS image that uses FAT, or can I still use NTFS?

Joe

Hi Joe,

Your problem does not have anything with XPe image or settings in TD.
You can't reach phase where ntldr is loaded, and it is OS independent.

Anyhow you must partition and format disk on your target device not on your development device.
You can use DOS, bootable CD or some other way to do this.

Disk geometry is unrelated to cluster size that you mention which is trade of filesystem.
Also partition size set in TD can be rough estimate not exact value and is required in non demo images (when COA key is present) so
some sort of license check is performed.

Concentrate on having:
1. Active partition created and formatted on target machine.
2. If you use DOS make sure to run bootprep.exe
3. Copy ntldr.
4. Make boot.ini with two same entries and timeout value higher than 0
5. Try reaching OS choice screen. (This so fat does not require you to have any of XPe image files)

Best regards,
Slobodan

Dan & KM,

I was thinking about using the TAP.EXE, but was thinking, for some reason, that I needed WindowsXP running to use it...

Anyway... I did change the timeout to 10 seconds just to see if I got the boot up menu, but never saw it, just as you suspected.

I think I will try and use FAT instead of NTFS over the weekend and see if that gives me better results.

The geometry thing was making me wonder too.... the HD is a 850MB drive and when it is formated I get anywhere from 811 to 813 MB
indications from different programs. The reason I was so worried about this is that in the Target Designer, I'm supposed to enter
inthe size of my partition, I tried once with 811, once with 812 and a third time with 813, but none of them worked... I also
wondered about the allocation unit size. I noticed that the 850MB hard drive wanted to use 1024 by default, but I made it 4096. I
also did try 1024, but neither one worked (I made sure I formatted the HD with 1024 or 4096 and set the properties in Targer
Designer to match each test).

Thanks again for all your replies. I was hoping this would be a little easier (it probably really is).

Joe

:

Dan,

I don't think Joe's problem has anything to do with TA/TAP output. He does not seem to get passeed ntldr part yet. That is not a
runtime image problem but rahter a disk geometry/MBR problem.

Joe, just to confirm - do you see the ntldr boot menu? (put a non zero timeout in boot.ini to make sure you see the menu)

If you don't see menu (which I would expect with the "Verifying DMI Pool Data..." message)...
If you would use FAT, I suggested you to run fdisk from DOS and remove all partitions, then fdisk /mbr, and then partition and
format the disk. But you are going with NTFS. I don't know why it is not working for you. Did you mark the partition as active?

Any way for you to check the runtime with FAT first? (assuming you included FAT FS support in your image).

--
Regards,
KM, BSquare Corp.


I don't know if you've tried this, but TAP.exe provides *much* better
results than TA. If possible, try running TAP.exe under Windows 98 to
provide a more complete picture for the devices in your system. If you're
missing a critical boot device, it might be the culprit.

TA will sometimes try to "guess" at certain devices it can't identify. If
it fails to identify the correct device, it might hang the system. Some
things that TAP will not identify:

ACPI (devices)
USB (devices)
1394 (devices)
SCSI (devices)
PCMCIA (devices)
ISA (devices)
HAL (Will attempt best Guess)
CPU (Will attempt best Guess)
IDE (devices)
GKW (other)
Software enumerated devices

TAP detects all of the above. TAP.exe can only be run in a 32-bit
environment, so if you can run Win98, that might help.

Dan

--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights


---





I guess this is the best place to put my reply. I thought of starting a
new thread.... I was hoping I could share with everybody a solution, or
explain what I did wrong, but I still haven't gotten it working.

I did partition/format the disk in the development PC using NTFS. I then
copied the XPembedded files from the image directory onto the drive while it
was still in the development PC. I then moved the drive to the target PC and
tried to boot it. I believe everything is done correctly, it just hangs up
while booting up. I'm thinking now that it doesn't have anything to do with
the XPembedded files at all.

When the PC is starting up, it hangs at some point and I get the following
text on the display, "Verifying DMI Pool Data...". After a search of the
web, I believe this is caused by some hardware problem, but i can't figure
out what it might be. I removed the HDD and CD-Rom and booted with a DOS
diskette with no problem. I connected the HDD and CD-ROM and booted with the
Windows98 Install CD with no problem. I then installed Windows98 on the
drive while it was in the target PC and "it" works fine.

Then I put the HD back into the development PC, formatted it with NTFS and
copied the XPembedded back onto it. Put it into the target PC and it hangs
again.

Oh well.

Thanks,
Joe

:

Hi Joe,

If you partition/format disk from Windows XP/2000 you will have bootable
disk and partitions for both FAT and NTFS filesystems.
Also you must mark first partition as active to make bootable MBR.

C:\ is volume letter, and it is assigned not to disk but to recognizable
partition during the boot time or you can preassign volume
letter you want from Target Designer.
command.com is obsolete and not used by XPe.

XPe will see different volume letter order that XP on your development
machine. Algorithm is rather complex for this thread to
explain how volume letters are assigned.

Read this for more info and you might find it useful some day:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/embedded/community/community/tips/xp/rtpartin/default.aspx

Best regards,
Slobodan

KM & JC,

Thanks for your attempts to help me out.

KM: I have done just what you have described, but it didn't boot up.
Perhaps I will spend some time with the target PC, maybe it
just isn't even seeing the drive. Does just formatting it give it a
"boot sector"

JC: From you other post you explain that I need only command.com,
boot.ini and NTLDR. I don't see a command.com (this is where I
thought that maybe formatting the drive as a second drive "D:\" in the
development PC doesn't set it as a "system" disk, so it won't
boot as the first drive "C:\" when it is put into the target PC).
Otherwise I believe that you mention the "ARC" path just as KM
did, and I set up the project just as KM described.

Thanks,
Joe


:

Joe,

Thanks for the clarifications. It helps understading your issues.

In your PC configuration (when you prepeare the target drive as a
second
disk in development PC), you will need to:
- Partition and format the driver. If you want to use NTFS, you
don't
need to do anything else to make the disk bootable as NTFS boot
sector
already knows how to find ntldr on the disk.
- Build an image with directory settings set to C:\.... Arcpath
is
probably default: "multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)", asusming
you got
your disk on Primary Master channel in your target PC.
- [x]Copy the build to the target drive (D:\ on your dev
machine).
- Plug the drive in the target PC and enjoy "FBA show".

KM

KM,

I was afraid I might have caused a bit of confusion. I will
describe the
two pc's I'm using and what I want to do.

PC #1: Developement PC running WindowsXP Pro
C:\ This is the main drive of this PC and where WindowsXP Pro and
Embedded
Studio is installed.
D:\ This is the "2nd" drive I added to complete the Tutorial. When
I leave
this drive in this PC I can do the dual boot thing as described in
the
Tutorial with no problems.

PC #2: The "Target" PC
The C:\ drive here is the D:\ drive from PC #1.

I created a WindowsXP Embedded system for PC #2 on PC #1 (remember
that PC
#1 is the "development PC) and copied it to the D:\ drive, I then
removed
the D:\ drive from PC #1 and put into PC #2 and it won't boot.

I believe the problem is that in PC #1 the "Boot" information is
actually
on it's C:\ drive and to boot from it's D:\ drive it reads that
first. Then
when I put the D:\ drive into PC #2, it is now the C:\ drive, but
there is
not actually any "Boot" information on it.

I do't know if there is a way to format the drive while is D:\ in
PC #1 as
NTFS with "system" files like you used to beable to with the DOS
format
utility.

I was hoping that all I would need to do is to change the Target
Device
Settings in my project to reflect that the D:\ Drive will now be the
C:\
drive int he Target PC.

Hope that clears it up.

Joe

:

Joe,

From your message I couldn't quite get whether you are able to
plug the
drive in to a machine (with XP Pro, or XPe installed) as a
second drive?
If
you can, why not format it from there since you want NTFS on it.

Also, you don't need that 2nd drive to be bootable if you
already have a
bootable disk in your target PC. Just set up boot.ini on the
system
drive
(1st bootable drive) to load OS from that 2nd drive.

I feel like we are going to get confused with the disk numbers
you are
reffering to (1st, 2nd, etc.).

KM

Hello all,

I have "sucessfully" built an XP embedded system using the
"Tutorial:
Building and Deploying a Run-Time Image", and it wasn't easy
I'll tell
ya.
The main problem is getting a development system to match the
prescribed
system in the tutorial. I can't add a second hard drive on my
main PC,
but I
was "provided" a back-up system (a pentium II with a hard drive
just
barely
large enough to contain the system and studio files and a second
hard
drive)
for development!

Following the tutorial I made an embedded system based on the
hardware
for
my development PC and everything went fine.

Now I want to make an embedded system based on hardware
different from
the
development system. I obtained a *.pmq file for the "target"
hardware
(yet
another long story since the target PC won't boot the WinXP PE
because
of a
video card incompatability I think, so I used an old DOS 6.22
disk to
boot
and run the TA.EXE file). I started a new project and built an
image in
the
same manner as the tutorial only using the target hardware *.pmq
file
and
copied it to the 2nd hard drive. I was hoping I would be able to
remove
the
2nd hard drive from the developement PC and put it in the target
PC (to
be
the 1st disk, I did set the settings in the project to recognise
the HD
as
C:\), but it didn't work. I presume because the 2nd hard drive
isn't
bootable?

So the question is, how would I make the 2nd hard drive
bootable, if
you
think that is the problem? I didn't see anyway to do it using
the disk
management on the development PC. I can't use the WinXP PE
(remember,
the
target PC won't boot with it). I even tried just using the
WindowsXP
installation disk to see if there are utilities in it I can use
to make
the
, but it won't boot either!

I could try and use the old DOS 6.22 disk again, but I wanted
to be
able
to use NTFS.

Thanks again,
Joe