550D autoboot warning

[Alex]

It seems that many people are having problems with large FAT32 cards
(> 4 GB): autoboot does not work. This applies to all 1.0.8 and 1.0.9
builds.

They say that ML works only if they select Firmware upgrade every time
when starting the camera.

My question is: can this do any harm to their cameras? Do they risk to
cause permanent damage to it if they upgrade the FW too many times?

I also had this problem when upgrading to 1.0.9... with a 512 MB card!
(it was formatted as FAT32, bootcf set the flags, I could see them in
the hex editor, but autoexec.bin did not boot. Solved with CardTricks/
FAT16).

There are lots of (confusing) guides on how to make larger cards
bootable. This needs to be cleaned up (to be a good guide on the wiki,
for example). I did not try ML on larger cards yet, so I don't have
the knowledge necessary for doing this.

Thanks.

[Piers]

I'm using a 16G FAT32 card from "delkin devices". Got it from B&H, no issues. Been doing all my testing on it.

I've seen talk either here or wiki that some Canon's (7D) appear to have a firmware update counter that lock up after N updates - I thought this was one of the reasons for the small firmware mod to load autoexec approach.

The OSX instructions are pretty incomplete for bootability - I've been meaning to roll them into their own page or something, but they're deliberately obscure to some extent to prevent the, er, less-clued from doing damage, so I've been thinking maybe I shouldn't

[Matt Dennie]

I have had good success with a 16gb card, fat32, made bootable with bootCF.exe. Both windows XP and windows 7 work well for me.

--
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[Alex]

I've just tried my 16 GB card.

Formatted from XP, bootcf => nothing (camera does not boot). Flags are
set (I can see them in hex editor and with bootcf).
Formatted from camera => XP says the card is not formatted.

So I'm still using an old 512M formatted with Fat32/cardtricks for ML.

Any ideas? The card reader was a SD one, but I've applied the MS patch
for SDHC to XP, and I can copy the pictures from the card (when
formatted from XP only).

[Pedro Barbosa]

i'm working with one 4gb and one 16gb class 6 silicone power...both
work but the 16gb sometimes doesn't boot and i need to take off the
battery...

[Piers]

speak of the devil. just tried, for the first time, to make an 8G card bootable. Using the OSX dd commands had no effect - card not renamed! (And therefore, no booting). Don't tell me I have to go and become a FAT32 expert ...

[Alex]

Are the NVRAM bootflags specific to card size/type? (e.g. different to
FAT16/FAT32?)

Could the two options from Boot menu help in making the card bootable?
(I don't know if they work or not). What is their role in the Boot
menu? (i.e. if ML already started, the card is already
bootable... ?! )

Still can't make my 16GB card bootable; the two labels are at the
correct offsets.

If I format the card in the camera, XP refuses to read it. In this
case, the HxD shows almost the entire card full of zeros (I've found
just 5 scattered nonzero bytes). Does the camera try to format the
card with exFAT? or there is a problem with my card reader?

If I format the card in XP, then bootcf, I can download photos, I can
see the FAT32/NTLDR/EOS_DEVELOP/BOOTDISK stuff on the card... but
camera refuses to load autoexec.bin.

[Alex]

Just got a new card reader, this time Linux-compatible. Ran
make_bootable.sh => ML is alive and kicking on the 16 GB card. Yay!

Turns out it was either the old card reader, or the commercial
operating system.