Booting VxWorks from hard-disk

[rvsaripa]

Hi,
I built the VxWorks image for a Pentium-based PC and am trying to copy
this to the PC . Currently, I am copying the OS image ( name :- vxWorks )
and the boot sector code ( bootrom_uncmp, default name I believe ) onto a
floppy . Sooner or later, when I keep adding objects ( for additional
functionality ) I see that they may no longer fit on a floppy . How do I do
the same on a hard-disk partition ?.

I tried the following :-

I partitioned the hard-disk on my target into 2 partitions. I left the
primary alone and installed Win98 on the other one . Then I tried using the
mkboot.bat
from a DOS shell to copy the boot sector onto the first
partition . But mkboot.bat ( which in turn calls vxsys.com ) fails saying
"Not a DOS disk". This might be because the first partition is a FAT 32
partition and vxsys.com might really need a FAT16 partition .

Has anyone in vxWorks land done this before ?.

Can you please tell me if there are other easier ways to go about doing this
?.

Thanks,
rk

all opinions expressed are mine and mine only .

[John Kevin Fabiani]

rvsaripa wrote:
>
> Hi,
> I built the VxWorks image for a Pentium-based PC and am trying to copy
> this to the PC . Currently, I am copying the OS image ( name :- vxWorks )
> and the boot sector code ( bootrom_uncmp, default name I believe ) onto a
> floppy . Sooner or later, when I keep adding objects ( for additional
> functionality ) I see that they may no longer fit on a floppy . How do I do
> the same on a hard-disk partition ?.
>
> I tried the following :-
>
> I partitioned the hard-disk on my target into 2 partitions. I left the
> primary alone and installed Win98 on the other one . Then I tried using the
> mkboot.bat
> from a DOS shell to copy the boot sector onto the first
> partition . But mkboot.bat ( which in turn calls vxsys.com ) fails saying
> "Not a DOS disk". This might be because the first partition is a FAT 32
> partition and vxsys.com might really need a FAT16 partition .

Correct. Also the bootrom.sys file _MUST_ be contiguous and must be on
C
(1st primary partition.)

(NT == chkdsk /f bootrom.sys or 95 == scandisk /f bootrom.sys)

>
> Has anyone in vxWorks land done this before ?.

Yes.

[david....@ifrsys.com]

I've tried to boot VxWorks from a hard disk only to fail miserably.

The disk is partitioned with a FAT-16 partition as the first primary
partition. That partition is bootable (marked active).

I do a vxsys c:\, and it works.
I copy a:bootrom.sys c:\bootrom.sys, and it works
I verify that bootrom.sys is contiguous.
I reboot the machine.
VxLd complains that it cannot find bootrom.sys

The bootrom.sys I copied over loaded fine from the floppy.

I created the file system from VxWorks, so it ought to be a configuration
that VxWorks likes.

Any ideas?

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[Roger Cruz]

I believe this is due to the fact that vxsys places a loader in Sector
0 similar to the DOS sys cmd. Because of its small size, it can't
search sub-directories looking for bootrom.sys, therefore, you need to
place it in the root directory. The other possibility is that you
didn't use vxcopy to copy the bootrom image generated by the compile to
the hard disk correctly.

Let me know if you need further help.

Roger.

PS: remove "_nojunk" from email address

From: david....@ifrsys.com

I do a vxsys c:\, and it works.
I copy a:bootrom.sys c:\bootrom.sys, and it works
I verify that bootrom.sys is contiguous.
I reboot the machine.
VxLd complains that it cannot find bootrom.sys

The bootrom.sys I copied over loaded fine from the floppy.

vxworks, VxWorks

--
Roger Cruz cruz_...@xyplex.com
Xyplex Networks w: 978-952-4783
295 Foster Street f: 978-952-4887
Littleton, MA 01460

[John Fabiani]

david....@ifrsys.com wrote:

> I've tried to boot VxWorks from a hard disk only to fail miserably.

Rest assured this can work.

>
>
> The disk is partitioned with a FAT-16 partition as the first primary
> partition. That partition is bootable (marked active).
>

> I do a vxsys c:\, and it works.

Freshly format the drive. (With FDISK and FORMAT from MSDOS)

Do "lock c:" to remove the partition protection (win95)

Do "vxsys c:\" - This copies the VxLD 1.2 bootstrapping code
to the filesystem bootsector. Note that the target hard drive
should exist as "c:\" at this stage (ie: you cannot do "vxsys d:" and
then switch the disk to C:, since the 0x80 BIOS representation
is used when vxld looks for bootrom.sys), else this will fail with no
bootrom.sys error.

Do "vxcopy bootrom c:\bootrom.sys" - this copies the file,
stripping the 32byte a.out header.

Do "chkdsk c:\bootrom.sys /f", since bootrom.sys
must be a contiguous file.

> I copy a:bootrom.sys c:\bootrom.sys, and it works
> I verify that bootrom.sys is contiguous.
> I reboot the machine.
> VxLd complains that it cannot find bootrom.sys
>
> The bootrom.sys I copied over loaded fine from the floppy.
>

> I created the file system from VxWorks, so it ought to be a configuration
> that VxWorks likes.

Hmm, that may be the problem.

Create the HDD filesystem from MSDOS. This will force the use
of partitions when making the file system (vxworks does not
create partitions) but looking at the asm for vxsys.com, it
does expect a partition if it is on a hard disk.