SDI2HD rebooting

[Guest]

Hey everyone
I used sdi2hd to extract an image to the C:\ drive, when I booted it just hung on a "_" and then I tried to run bootprep.exe and after that it simply reboots almost immediately after checking the boot media, ie. cd hd floppy

Any ideas

 

[KM]

Mark,

You haven't mentioned how you created the image, the sdi file, how you
partitioned and prepared the storage media and etc.
There have been many different issues with sdi2hd deployment solved in this
NG.
I would suggest you to check the NG archive for more info. Just use google
search:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=...a=group=microsoft.public.windowsxp.embedded.*

KM

Hey everyone,
I used sdi2hd to extract an image to the C:\ drive, when I booted it just

hung on a "_" and then I tried to run bootprep.exe and after that it simply
reboots almost immediately after checking the boot media, ie. cd hd floppy.

 

[Guest]

KM

This what I did, to a "T" most of it comes from the MS Embedded Articles in the MSDN Tech articles..

Build a run-time image using Target Designer.
Record the size of the run-time image.

Use the SDI Loader to create a virtual disk.
While creating the virtual disk, make the disk size at least as large as your run-time image, preferably larger, so it can hold the entire image

Start Disk Management. In Control Panel, open Administrative Tools, and then open Computer Management. Then, perform the following steps to initialize and format the disk, and make the disk active:
Right-click the virtual disk, and then choose Initialize Disk.
Do not convert to a dynamic disk; leave the disk formatted as a basic disk.

Right-click the disk image, and then choose New Partition.
Use the default values, and then choose Finish to complete the partition setup process.
Right-click the disk image again, and then choose Mark Partition as Active.
Copy the run-time image to the newly created virtual disk, the SDI folder.
Use SDI Loader to remove the SDI disk.
Now the SDI file that contains the run-time image is ready to be used and deployed with the SDI2HD tool.

On the Target System
Started it up with a startupdisk. Loaded the target machine into DOS

Used Fdisk, deleted all partitions, then created one partition the size of the entire drive

Formatted it with the DOS format command, Format C

Post format, I rebooted, ran BOOTPREP.ex

Restarted again into DOS, then at a dos prompt I ran "SDI2HD E:\sdidisk.sdi

After the image extracted, I rebooted

Right after the memory count, the machine basically holds, at a blinking "_" in the upper right hand corner

Any ideas? I searched the posts and found nothing of value. Thanks for any help

Mark

 

[KM]

Mark,

The instructions seem to be right (cut/paste from MS article?). Though, it shouldn't be necessary to format your target partition(s)
if you use .sdi file with DISK BLOB in it (the .sdi from SDILoader)

Now coming to your problem "machine basically holds"... A few questions/hints (not the sequence you should follow):

1. Have you ever deployed an XPe image on to the target? If not, try it with just (x-)copying the image. You do the preparation of
the target storage as you described below and then just copy over the image (over network, or just moving the hard-drive to your dev
machine, or copying though CD, or etc.).. Run the image on the target and see if FBA starts and goes on. If so, the problem is
within the SDI file you created.

2. Right after you did "sdi2hd ..." command, check the boo.ini file on the target drive. Change timeout value in it from "0" to a
reasonable value (15-30) to see if it gets to ntldr when you reboot the target device. If it does not, a problem could be with the
disk geometry/BIOS support. Or you can use NTFS on the target to exclude bootprep.exe from the picture.

3. For the final deployment you may want to capture a "golden" image (post-FBA) in to your .sdi file.

4. On the target (if it has a CD-ROM), boot from WinPE (1-st XPe/SP1 CD) and try to deploy another SDI file that contains PART blob
in it (you got to capture this one by using "sdimg /readpart" command on your dev or target machine) using SDIMgr (search this NG
archive for more details/explanations).

--
KM,
BSquare Corporation

KM-

This what I did, to a "T" most of it comes from the MS Embedded Articles in the MSDN Tech articles...

Build a run-time image using Target Designer.
Record the size of the run-time image.

Use the SDI Loader to create a virtual disk.
While creating the virtual disk, make the disk size at least as large as your run-time image, preferably larger, so it can hold the entire image.

Start Disk Management. In Control Panel, open Administrative Tools, and then open Computer Management. Then, perform the following

steps to initialize and format the disk, and make the disk active:

 

[Guest]

Yes KM, those are the instructions directly from the MS site, I followed them to a T

I rebooted into dos, and I see the files are actually on the C: drive, I can see in fdisk that that particular partition is active. Although right after the memory count and the IDE seeking, it just holds at a blinking cursor in the upper right hand corner.

I tried the timeout change, but alas nothing

It has to be Fat file format for a specific reason so I can't swap to NTFS..

I hear people talking about using xcopy to copy the image over. But in a 16bit pure dos mode this can't be done since it only supports 8.3 file extensions correct

Any idea as to what might be wrong, like I said, the files are there, the partition is correct, it's simply not booting
THANKS KM!

 

[KM]

Mark,

I am not sure why it is not booting for you. Maybe your disk MBR gets
corrupted? (try fdisk /mbr command)
Have you been able to boot an OS off the hard drive? (e.g., DOS? or XP
Pro?). As far as I understood, you rebooted in to DOS off a floppy, right?
Does you target device have a CD-ROM? If it does, boot in WinPE (XPe/SP1
CD1) and copy your XPe image using xcopy (will support long file names).
Then reboot and see if FBA runs.
If you still want to use sdi approach (for whatever reasons) you may use SDI
Mgr (with WINPE) to deploy your sdi file. You may need to use a sdi file
with PART blob only to deploy on the pre-partitioned target disk.

KM

Yes KM, those are the instructions directly from the MS site, I followed them to a T.

I rebooted into dos, and I see the files are actually on the C: drive, I

can see in fdisk that that particular partition is active. Although right
after the memory count and the IDE seeking, it just holds at a blinking
cursor in the upper right hand corner.

I tried the timeout change, but alas nothing?

It has to be Fat file format for a specific reason so I can't swap to NTFS...

I hear people talking about using xcopy to copy the image over. But in a

16bit pure dos mode this can't be done since it only supports 8.3 file
extensions correct?

Any idea as to what might be wrong, like I said, the files are there, the

partition is correct, it's simply not booting?