BeagleBone - microSD FAT format issue

[Richard Blue]

I'm trying to follow the instructions on the CircuitCo wiki to create
a microSD card with the new "A5" release image..
http://circuitco.com/support/index.php?title=BeagleBone

I'm stuck here...
7.Insert >=4GB SD card into the reader/writer.
8. Run the HPFormatter tool and format the SD card for FAT. Close
the HPFormatter tool when done.

My microSD card is Transcend 8 GB, Class 6, brand new from Amazon I'm
using a new USB-microSD adapter from Special Computing

The microSD mounts correctly in Windows (win7 pro, 64bit), as "F:",
shows 7.4GB free, FAT32 formatted

There seem to be 2 versions of the HP Formatter tool in circulation -
v2.2.3 and the one linked to in the CircuitCo wiki. The v2.2.3 only
comes as a Windows interface, the older one has HP Both Windows
versions want to be used as "Run as Administrator" - that's fine -
doing that.

1) Using either version of the Windows of the HP tool, the HP
formatter won't let me format in FAT. The F: drive is selected as
"Device", that's correct, but ONLY FAT32 and NTFS are offered, no menu
option for FAT

2) The older HP Formatter has a DOS version ("HPUSBF.exe"). I finally
worked out that in Windows 7 at least you need to run this by creating
a DOS prompt by using "Run as Administrator" when select "Command
Prompt" from the Start menu (Otherwise you get a Device error)

BUT even when I do this, HP Formatter, under DOS with "Run as
Administrator" I get a message that "Volume is too big!"

C:\DriveKey>hpusbf f:

HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool, Version 1.00.012 (11/13/2003)
Copyright (c) 2003 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.

The type of the current file system is RAW.

WARNING! ALL DATA ON THE DRIVE F: ( Flash Disk) WILL BE LOST!
Are you really sure that you want to proceed with Format (Y/N)? y

Verifying 7.42GB...
***ERROR*** Volume is too big!
***ERROR*** Failed to format the device!

C:\DriveKey>

How should I format my 8GB microSD card under Windows?

Is there a size limit for FAT (I read there is a 2GB partition limit
for FAT (vs FAT32))

Should I partition it first? (I have Acronis Disk Director)

It would be really good if the instructions on the Wiki could be as
clear as possible for Newbies with limited embedded experience and
without a Linux machine available

Many thanks!
Richard

[Gerald Coley]

The image is a copy of an 4GB SD card. Using an 8G card is really a waste of half a card. You must use FAT as the boot ROM has trouble reading FAT32 for booting. I see FAT in my format

tool. Use version 2.0.6. I need to check the later versions. If you can't find it, send me direct email and I will send it to you.

 

It may be that the formatter tool, as old as it is, can't format 8G. As I said, it is a waste anyway. I suggest you get a 4G card for this.

 

If your card is new, then you really don't need to do the format step as indicated in the instructions. The imager tool will just write over it an in essence just reformat the card. You only need this to recreate a card that was done before, where the FAT partition is the only partition seen.

 

I suggest that you skip to the WindiskImager step and just do that one.

 

The instructions are written for a Windows machine and not linux.

 

Gerald

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 12:13 PM, RichardB <richar...@gmail.com> wrote:

(This didn't seem to post the first time - hope this doesn't come through twice)

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Gerald

 

ger...@beagleboard.org

http://beagleboard.org/

http://circuitco.com/support/

[Gerald Coley]

I have confirmed that the newest version of HP Formatter tool has dropped support for FAT. Looks like the links were updated to a different versions than we have been using for 4 years now. We are looking for a solution here.

 

I think that if you format it to FAT32, it should be written over with diskimager, so this should not be an issue for use when just creating an image. It could be an issue when trying to make a bootable card where you plan to copy the files over manually.

 

Gerald

 

Richard

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[Gregg D. Harrington]

 I have recently just done this about 1 week ago (with a 4 gig card) and it worked fine using the FAT32.

[Daniel Chisholm]

For what it's worth, the SD card is partitioned into a small FAT32
partition, and then a rest-of-disk linux partition.

For what it's worth this partitioning scheme is consistent with what
the linux shell script "mkcard.txt" would generate (see
http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/demo/beaglebone/ and in
particular the linux-only (sorry!) section "How to Unpack and Boot the
Demo Image - the hard way").

Here is what my 4GB card looks like (it was produced by copying the
~135M image file Angstrom-Cloud9-IDE-eglibc-ipk-v2012.01-core-
beaglebone-2012.01.27.img.xz onto the SD card, again, linux, sorry):

**************************************************************************

root@beaglebone:~# fdisk /dev/mmcblk0

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/mmcblk0: 3904 MB, 3904897024 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 474 cylinders, total 7626752 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/mmcblk0p1 * 63 144584 72261 c W95 FAT32
(LBA)
/dev/mmcblk0p2 144585 7132859 3494137+ 83 Linux

Command (m for help): q

root@beaglebone:~#

**************************************************************************

[Gerald Coley]

For waht it is worth, I have seen issues with FAT32 on BeagleBoard and BeagleBoard-xM. I have not seen it on the BeagleBone.

 

Gerald

 

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[RichardB]

Thank you Gerald and everyone for your help

-- FAT32 format using the Windows version of the HP formatter worked
great
-- I saw you updated the CircuitCo wiki page. It might be worth
mentioning that the HP format util seems to need "Run as
Administrator" at least in Windows 7

-- This build seems much better that 11/16 version, thank you for the
help updating
* Connects via USB at192.168.7.2 and via ethernet cable via router-
assigned statics IP address
* bone101 runs
* GateOne runs
* Cloud9 runs
* PuTTY connects

All seems as advertised! Now to try and understand how to program on
Cloud9 etc

Thanks everyone
Richard

On Feb 21, 3:08 pm, Gerald Coley <ger...@beagleboard.org> wrote:
> For waht it is worth, I have seen issues with FAT32 on BeagleBoard and
> BeagleBoard-xM. I have not seen it on the BeagleBone.
>
> Gerald
>
> On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 2:05 PM, Daniel Chisholm

> <daniel.chish...@gmail.com>wrote:

>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > For what it's worth, the SD card is partitioned into a small FAT32
> > partition, and then a rest-of-disk linux partition.
>
> > For what it's worth this partitioning scheme is consistent with what
> > the linux shell script "mkcard.txt" would generate (see

> >http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/demo/beaglebone/and in

[Hiremath, Vaibhav]

Use HP formatter tool v2.0.6 version, it works properly.

Thanks,
Vaibhav

On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 01:18:51, Gregg D. Harrington wrote:
> I have recently just done this about 1 week ago (with a 4 gig card) and
> it worked fine using the FAT32.
>
>

[Gerald Coley]

Do you have a link for that? All the ones we have download 2.1.18, which BTW works fine for image preps..

 

Gerald

[Hiremath, Vaibhav]

You can download the tool from - http://www.4shared.com/rar/9mNWV4Vl/HP_USB_Disk_Storage_Format_Too.html

 

 

Thanks,

Vaibhav

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[Hiremath, Vaibhav]

Alternate direct link - http://www.sysanalyser.com/sp27213.exe

 

 

Thanks,

Vaibhav

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