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akidder

1519 Posts
Posted - 25 Sep 2003 :  11:10:02  Show Profile  Email Poster
FAT12/16/32 and ADS Boot Code: Formatting to a Compatible FAT

It's sometimes possible to have a CompactFlash card that doesn't work with ADS boot code. Reasons include:
  • Some PC versions of Windows can create a FAT16 format variation that the bootloader does not recognize.

  • Some CF cards report they are FAT12, but are actually FAT16.
Any of these conditions can cause ADS boot code to read data from a CF card incorrectly. This can can render a board unusable if you use a bad card to reprogram a system's boot code.

Getting to a "Known Good" Format

If you have a problem with a card, you will want to format it to a "known good" format. There are several ways to get there. One such way is to use Windows CE itself to format a CF storage card:
  1. "Corrupt" the flash card.
    You can do this by using an invald format on the card (usually NTFS) or deleting the partion informaiton altogether.

    1A. Format the cards as NTFS.
    Some builds of Windows (e.g. XP) require you to change the disk "policies" to allow you to format as NTFS. To do this...
    • Right-click on the disk in Explorer

    • Select Properties

    • Select the Hardware tab

    • Select the CF disk from the list

    • Select the Policies tab

    • Select the option to Optimize for Performance


    1B. Delete the partition information of the card
    • Right-click My Computer

    • Select Manage

    • Select Storage, Disk Management

    • Right click on your removable disk (choose carefully!)

    • Select Delete Partition...

    • Select Yes.


  2. Insert the card in a CE device. Respond "yes" when it offers to reformat the card. It will format the card with a FAT16 structure that the boot code can recognize.

If you're interested in what the existing format of your card is, take a look at topic 1162.

See Also:
Topic 1871: CE Bootloaders, ATA Cards and FAT

esavolle

31 Posts
Posted - 26 Feb 2004 :  09:17:36  Show Profile  Email Poster
Hi
I have formated my 256 MB Compact Flash in FAT16 both using a PC then using the Storage Manager included in CE Image. I have made only one partition .

During the boot, i have the following error message:

>> ADSLOAD.ROM : Reading ... Writing...
>> ATAInitializeDevice: ATA device FAT not supported(0x5).
>> Failed to load ADSLOAD.ROM from an ATA Flash Card.

When using a 32 MB CF formated with the same ways, i have only:
>> ADSLOAD.ROM : Reading ... Writing...
>> Failed to load ADSLOAD.ROM from an ATA Flash Card.

And this sentence is normal because i have put no ADSLOAD.ROM on the CF.

So my question:
Is there a maximum size for a partition having to be managed by the bootloader ? Or is it a bad format ?

I add that when CE is loaded the CF is recognized by CE.

My System is BitsyX with CE 4.10.28.

thanks a lot

Eric
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mbarrett

1 Posts
Posted - 03 Sep 2004 :  08:27:13  Show Profile  Email Poster
The policies on my PC prevented me from formatting the PC card as described above. However I was able to format from the DOS prompt in XP.

The command line is "format <drive>: /FS:NTFS". Replace "<drive>" with the letter designation of your compact flash card.
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