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). |