Re: Windows XPe - Sorry, Getting Feed UP

From: Richard (S_at_S.com)
Date: 10/19/04 

Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 15:22:22 -0500

>
> > XP will not partition CF Drives unless you get a utility from the CF
> > Manufacturer that changes a bit. If that is the case, why doesn't
Microsoft
> > allow us to ignore that bit, evidently once the bit is changed Windows
can treat it the same.
>
> Many CF Manufacturer sell cards with already fixed bit set.

Yes, my Industrial Sandisk is already preset, but can you imagine in true
IDE Mode, hooked directly to the IDE Cable, you would have to power down
and reboot on each and every CF you copied? Not Hot Swappable.

>
> > Programs like BootPrep must be run in a pure Dos mode, well isn't that
sweet
> > since everyone is doing away with DOS. Your telling me whatever
Bootprep
> > does can be handled from with a Windows environment?
>
> You don't need Bootprep if you partition and format your target storage
under XP Pro. This is true if you use FAT or NTFS.
> I guess XPe docs are not clear about this.

Maybe I'm missing something here. If you were to use NTFS, you would have
to have 1) a True IDE to CF adapter then
2) Partition and Format the CF 3) Copy the Image to it, 4)Turn Off the
computer, remove the CF, Install another CF, Boot the computer.

This is productive?

>
> > Everytime you turn around, it buy this or buy that or kludge this or
here is
> > a workaround. And not fix all the freaking bugs in TD because they are
> > concentrating on Longhorn, what a crock. Fixing some of these bugs
wouldn't take that much effort.
>
> This is not true. It is much effort when it comes to testing :-( It is all
about available resources and business cases that promise
> to pay off the efforts.

Ah, I didn't pay $1100 to Test the Development Kit, I paid the money to
build images and test the images I built and them rapidly deploy.

> You don't need DOS if you have CD-ROM or USB option on your target (WinPE
or XP Pro are options to go with).
> However, there are many target devices that don't have CD-ROM included.
They may have floppy option, thouhg. At least at development
> time. As you can imagine, it is hard to fit XP or even WinPE on a floppy
disk. That is why DOS is still around to be used with XPe.

Nope, our embedded device has no provisions for Floppy. Not controller. I
could use a USB Adapter, but then I'd be right back to square 1. No CD
Either. The only time a CD was hooked up was to Install XP Pro and Run TAP.

>
> > These folks are dealing with commercial companies which depend on these
> > products to work and work properly. No wonder development costs are sky
high!!!
>
> The development costs for XPe is lower then, say, Linux Embedded. To
create a complete solution with LE (I am not saying which is
> better) you got to be more a developer. While in XPe world you don't need
to know much about programming (well.. it always helps
> anyway).

Yes, I agree, because most everything you want to do with any of them
requires you to be a programmer. Very common reply in these newsgroups.
Oh, that can be done with the DDK.

I know Linuix has CF Tools that allow USB and CF to be managed. Our sister
company, which uses Linuix, and which tried to talk me into using linuix
copies CF all day long on a USB CF Writer.

A lot of this is simply me venting, but some of it just plain doesn't make
sense. If your doing several hundred or thousand of these devices, it
should be made very easy to duplicate the CF. (Actually it is except for
the BootPrep Tool).

Most of this could be handled, since the CF Come prepartioned, and
formatted, a USB Writer can do a copy of all the files to the CF, like we
currently do, but having to boot from DOS and Run Bootprep is for the
birds!!!.

Richard

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Using MSDOS
    ... The second partition is available for anything, such as MSDOS, and can be ... Use your boot floppy as boot image for the CD. ... that the DOS partition needs to be reasonably near the front of the ... format DOS and XPe partitions with /s, ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.embedded)
  • Re: More compact flash issues
    ... XPe is not going to be able to see more than one partition on a removable ... Partitioning the CF card is okay, but XPe ... will only see one partition.It can boot from the active partition, ... If you want to add DOS to the CF card to see if it will boot, ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.embedded)
  • Re: Need to Clone Laptop HDD
    ... Drive Image 2002 was so sweet, copying each partition as you choose, in Caldera DOS, and copying at 2,100 MB/Min. ... Acronis advised me that it does not clone a drive in DOS. ... that they do not recommend cloning to an external USB drive because of the possibility of boot problems. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: Bootable CD problem
    ... When I boot from CD with XPe CD1, ... I now use winPE from the XPe CD1 to create the first and only partition FAT ... it does since you are accessing that partition data offline which means EWF is out of the picture. ... Do you mean you want to use USB CD-ROM? ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.embedded)
  • Re: Windows multiboot (aaargh!)
    ... > - Make a DOS boot floppy with FDISK and FORMAT on, ... The Linux boot floppy is a bit more tricky. ... > partition, ...
    (Debian-User)