Hello,
For what it is worth: We have had not problem booting form SanDisk Extreme III
CF 16 GB cards with a 200 MByte boot partition at the start of the card.
Our only boot problem is when we have BOTH of these solid state devices
installed:
SanDisk Extreme III CF card 16 GB
OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD 240 GB
AND the Soekris net5501 is cold booting (when the power has been off for about
35 seconds or more).
... but that is more likely a power / power supply related issue. <<== Still
unresolved I'm afraid. ;-(
chongo (Landon Curt Noll) /\oo/\
=-=
On 2011-Jul-19, at 23:06, Darryl Miles wrote:
>
> Landon Curt Noll wrote:
> > On our net5501-70 we have installed both a:
> >
> > SanDisk Extreme III CF card 16 GB
> > OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD 240 GB
> >
> > When the Soekris net5501-70 powers on, the net5501 displays on the console
> > port:
> >
> > comBIOS ver. 1.33 20070103 Copyright (C) 2000-2007 Soekris
> > Engineering.
> >
> > net5501
> >
> > 0512 Mbyte Memory CPU Geode LX 500 Mhz
> >
> > Pri Mas SanDisk SDCFX3-16384 LBA Xlt 1024--63 16007
> > Mbyte
> > Pri Sla OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD LBA Xlt 1024-255-63 134 Gbyte
>
>
>
> I opened up a thread about 5501 a while ago, exactly the same thing. SanDisk
> 16M CF card the 5501 is unable to boot from it (with a 1st partition larger
> than around 8Mb).
>
> The tell tale sign is the "Pri Mas SanDisk SDCFX3-16384 LBA Xlt 1024--63
> 16007 Mbyte"
>
>
> Note the "1024--63" I believe there should be a number of heads in between
> the dashes. Someone explain why it is missing! Looks like a bug, smells
> like a bug ....
>
>
> I have never been able to get the SanDisk 16Mb CF card to be bootable, if any
> part of the bootup data is outside the _FIRST_ _TRACK_ of the remapped
> geometry.
>
>
> <calculations>
> I included the exact calculations in my multiple emails to this list (please
> search archives around "[Soekris] Debian5/GRUB installation problems" around
> Mar-2010). I think the limit was around 8Mb.
>
> So Landon, try making the file system (or partition) less than say
> 255*63=16065(sectors; the sectors in 1 track) 16065(sectors) - 1(sector for
> MBR) = 16064(sectors)
>
> 16064(sectors) / 2 = 8032 Kb of data (@ 512byte sectors)
>
> So make your 1st boot partition less than 8032Kb in total length, see if you
> can bootup now. You might want to make it a little smaller to allow for
> alignment/rounding of partition tools etc...
>
> I think you will be able to bootup now.
>
> But 8MB is not a useful size use to allow for fallback/replacement kernels :(
> </calculations>
>
>
>
> Soren Kristensen wrote:
>> Joel Jaeggli wrote:
>>> On Jul 5, 2011, at 7:49 AM, der Mouse wrote:
>>>> I assume there's a 28-bit
>>>> block number field somewhere or some such, but that's just guessing.)
>>>
>>> yes 28bit addressing was supplanted by 48bit lba, but not here clearly.
>>
>> Yes, the Soekris comBIOS is currently limited to 28 bit LBA, only a
>> problem if the boot partition is located higher than the limit.
> ....
>
>> But while I'm working on the comBIOS anyway I will try to find time to
>> implement 48 bit LBA for older boards too, it's not really that
>> complicated....
>
>
> I am not sure it is a 28bit v 48bit problem. Even under 28bit addressing it
> should be possible to boot from a larger part of the disk than 8Mb.
>
> The bug in comBIOS 1.33c is more chronic than this. Again please note the
> "1024--63" in the bootup info, please explain why thre is no number in the
> middle. I think if you fix that, then yes... it should be possible to bootup
> from anywhere within the first 28bit addressing.
>
> But right now... you can only boot up from the first track, which is 8Mb
> which is more like 17bit LBA!
>
>
> So please if you get some time please look into the smaller problem then as a
> nice to have feature look at 48bit LBA.
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Darryl
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