Regarding compact flash

[tinypoodle]

I noted that the 256MByte CF is formatted as FAT, presumably as FAT16, and the 4G CF is formatted as FAT32.  I'm not sure what might happen if I attempted to format the CF as FAT16.

Note that standard max. size for a FAT16 file system is 2GB.
You can make it 4GB at the cost of some compatibility and possibly wasting space by using 64KB clusters.
So, you might want to consider multiple partitions.

[gerald_clark]

Why not use ext2?

[Rich]

Hi John
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it's not a FAT16 or FAT32 problem, Linux is only probing
for devices and does not care what's on it, otherwise you could never install a new drive if it were
not formatted. I'm also going to guess that you have drive C set to auto in the BIOS setup and it's
taking a long time to determine the size of that 4Gig flash card. You say that the BIOS is reporting
a SanDisk SDCFH-004G, I take it that's the 4Gig card. Go to the BIOS setup ide hdd auto detection
page and tell it to autodetect both drives, then save and exit and see if that helps. If that does not
work then go to the standard cmos setup page and on drive c try large or LBA, do not use normal,
that's only good up to 528Meg.

[jmhill]

Okay, there are least two factors to take into account.

1) fixed disk setting - I'll have to either buy a CF configured as fixed media type or find a way to reconfigure a CF to see if it makes any difference

2) File system - Just found a note on sandisk.com that recommends that CF 2G and smaller be formatted with FAT and CF 4G and larger be formatted with FAT32.  I see your point Rich, though.

I'll take another look at the BIOS.

Jonathan

[jmhill]

I just received a 4GByte Transcend "Industrial Grade" Compact Flash (CF), model CF200I.  The documentation says it's "fixed media" type.  I'm still booting off CD-ROM with the 'tinycore ide-core.nodma=1.0' boot code, but now the CF can actually mount, this is good.

I'd like to boot off this CF, so I'm following along in the "Tiny Core Linux Installation" notes.

'fdisk -l' tells me that:
o The CF is on /dev/hdc
o The CF is bootable
o The CF is already formatted with FAT32
o Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings
    phys=(1023, 254, 63) logical=(495, 142, 63)

cfdisk has a fatal error: "Bad primary partition 0: Partition ends in the final partial cylind"

The CF is already formatted, so I'm continuing.  In copying over the system files, 'cp -p' says that it cannot preserve ownership.

At this point the drive is /mnt/hdc, partition is /mnt/hdc1, and is mounted

In using grub:

grub> root (hd2,0)
Error 21: Selected disk does not exist

I must be missing something here.
Jonathan

[gerald_clark]

If you want to use grub, you must format the CF ext2, not FAT.
The errors you quoted are all due to using FAT32.

[curaga]

@jmhill
Grub only numbers the drives that exist. If unsure, type "root (hd" and tab-complete.

@gerald_clark
Grub works fine on fat too, I have some sticks booting that way.

[jmhill]

Thanks for getting me over the hurdle with respect to grub, particularly the way grub numbers things.  Okay, some of the error/warning notes I saw will be present with FAT32.

I just changed the boot order and presto, I just booted off the CF.  This is good news!

Jonathan