HOWTO: Boot Thinstation from an Compact Flash card (IDE or USB)

By Darren Martz (dmartz AT shelbrook.com), March 2005. Updated May 2005.
Edited by Mike Eriksen

Requirements:
1) either an IDE-CF adapter, or a mainboard that supports booting from USB-CF readers.
2) compact flash card 32 MB or larger (depends on TS-O-Matic options used). 32 MB is normally enough.
3) SysLinux downloaded and uncompressed
4) A Windows or Linux workstation

Warning:
Some CF card brands may only support a small number of writes, others may not be 100% DMA compliant
(IDE-CF). The Lexar brand seems to me to have consistent quality and DMA support. Some brands may be
problematic (I had problems with Sandisk).

STEP 1:
Use your digital camera, Windows, or Linux to format your CF card as a DOS (FAT16, VFAT) drive. A
digital camera is usually the quicker and cleaner way to do this. If its a new never been used CF card,
it will be preformatted.

STEP 2:
Download and uncompress SysLinux. You do not need to build it, just download it and uncompress it.
 For Linux we'll assume it's in the ~/SysLinux folder. For Windows, we'll assume its in the folder
 C:\SysLinux.

STEP 3:
In the SysLinux folder there is a file called mbr.bin. Copy it to the CF card, but rename it to dos.bss.
This is a basic master-boot-record (MBR), and using this will save the hassle of searching for a
Win98 diskette and using DD to copy the MBR. This is nice and simple.

On Linux:
   # mount /dev/hdb1 /mnt/cflash
   # cp ~/SysLinux/mbr.bin /mnt/cflash/dos.bss
   # umount /mnt/cflash
Replace the /dev/hdb1 with what ever drive name is required. You may need to create the /mnt/cflash
folder prior to the above statements.

(EDIT: After  the initial release of this HOWTO, Darren and I had a communication if this step worked or not.
It didn't work for me, but Darren confirmed it worked for him. I had to do a "cat mbr.bin > /dev/hdb" once
hdb wasn't mounted. Mike)


On Windows:
  C:\SysLinux> copy C:\SysLinux\mbr.bin D:\dos.bss
Replace the drive letters and folder name with what ever your system is using. Here we are assuming the
CF card is the D drive.

STEP 4:
Install syslinux onto the CF card.
On Linux:
   # ~/SysLinux/mtools/syslinux /dev/hdb1
Replace the /dev/hdb1 with what ever drive name is required.

On Windows:
   C:\> C:\SysLinux\syslinux.exe  D:\
Replace the drive letters and folder name with what ever your system is using.


STEP 5:
Run TS-O-Matic and choose the SYSLINUX boot deployment option. Then download each file and copy it to
the CF card without modification or renaming.

STEP 6:
Reboot using the CF card - you may need to change your BIOS boot settings.

UPDATING:
Updating ThinStation? Just repeat steps 5 and 6. The other steps are only done once per CF card.

LINKS:
If your looking for an IDE-CF adapter, or don't know what it looks like, try the following link:
    http://www.mesanet.com/diskcardinfo.html
(This is not an endorsement of the product or company, they just have nice pictures).