Trying to upgrade RISC OS rom to latest version - error

I’ve tried all sorts of things to try to get this working myself. I’m not one to ask for help normally and will exhaust all possible options I can find before I do that – but I’m out of ideas unfortunately.

Firstly, I started with an image from:

https://riscosdev.com/direct/

This was good because this image used the whole 8GB of the SD card, rather than restricting me to using only 2GB
I have bought !SystemDisc and saw a guide on using that to resize to 8GB an existing partition, but it sounded complex and at the time it just seemed easier to use the existing one that was already sized.

I’m currently using Raspberry Pi 3B+, but I’m soon to upgrade to Raspberry Pi 4 8GB for a new computer I’m putting together (3D printed a mini RISC PC case for it and will put LEDs on the front and stuff – if people are interested I can share photos later when it’s done). It’s a lot smaller than a classic RISC PC but – what’s life without a little RISC? :D

What I wanted to do though was update to the latest version. I thought I’d try to do this manually using a few guides I found online. I wasn’t worried about doing any damage as I haven’t configured an awful lot and am fine to start again. I more just want to know how I should do this in future so I can keep up to date.

I downloaded the latest firmware, and the latest hard disk image and latest ROM (nightly build of the last two – but this isn’t the problem because I also tried RC16)

Firmware files in place:

bootcode/bin
fixup/dat
start/elf
fixup4/dat
start4/elf

Replaced ALL files based on hard disk image – used force mode in Filer and not “newer”

Reboot worked fine, so I then updated the ROM image – RISCOS/IMG

Reboot errored with:

Boot:Choices.Boot.PreDesk.CPUSetup
CPU Setup: Enabling legacy ARMv5 compatibility mode for old software
Boot:Choices.Boot.PreDesk.DALimit
Boot:Choices.Boot.PreDesk.Configure
Error: SWI &42701 not known (Error number &1E6)

Replaced the ROM image back to the previous version (everything else the same), and then restarted and did the following (as thought maybe the settings were incompatible).

!Boot.Choices.Boot
Deleted all
Used Utilities.Caution.ResetBoot
Rebooted to reset the files

Changed RISCOS/IMG file to new rom again
Rebooted

Same error :(

Also, tried replacing System with the system resources download – didn’t help, same error on reboot.

Tried deleting things from !Boot.Choices.Boot to see if any of those caused the error, until all I was left with was:
PreDesk.CPUSetup, DALimit
Still got the same error…

Rom RISCOS/IMG from RC16 – same error

It seems the only RISCOS/IMG it is happy with is the one that came with the image I downloaded originally. What am I missing?

Error: SWI &42701 not known

SWI &42701 is Squash_Decompress. In Direct a module is unplugged. Unplugs are recorded by number and there are changes to module ordering in the later development ROMs so the “wrong” module gets unplugged. *ROMModules should show that *RMReInit Squash should fix it. BootFX, IIRC, was the module unplugged by Direct. (!Boot may need updating to match the newer ROMs, an obsolete network module has been removed from the ROM but an old !Boot would still attempt to load it.)

Direct can run on the RPi4 but !Boot needs an update to accommodate the different, EtherGENET, networking.

HTH.

Thanks for that

It actually makes sense now you explained it. The guide I followed did say to run *Unplug to check for unplugged modules, and there was one. What it didn’t say though was what I should do about it

rminsert <unplugged module title> or try removing the CMOS file from the loader folder.

Thanks very much everyone, this worked perfectly!

My upgrade process is now as follows (copied and amended from a couple of sources and added to):

You should also download the “HardDisc4” image from the Miscellaneous downloads page
Plus firmware from raspberry pi
Plus RPi ROM from RISC OS Open site

• Using the *Unplug command in a TaskWindow, check if any ROM modules are unplugged and make a note of that.
• rminsert or try removing the CMOS file from the loader folder.
• Download Beta HardDisc4 and Beta RPi ROM from the RISC OS Open site and put them in some temporary directory (I will assume it’s called $.tmp from here on).
• Switch off the Filer option Newer and turn on Force on.
• Double click $.tmp.HardDisc4/zip to open a SparkFS Filer window. Double click the HardDisc4 directory in that window to open the Filer window $.tmp.HardDisc4/zip.HardDisc4.
• Click Menu over the open window $.tmp.HardDisc4/zip.HardDisc4, choose Select all and drag the selection to the ‘root’ of your SD card. This should add any items to the card that didn’t exist there before and update existing ones that have newer versions in the zip. Items like the Choices directory (which is empty in the zip) and the DOSDisc $.!Boot.Loader (which doesn’t exist in the zip) should remain unchanged.
  Unfortunately, the default HardDisc4 archive does not contain everything you would find in the full image. At this stage however, everything that’s required should be there.
• Switch the Filer option Newer on again and Force off.
• Reboot to check if everything still works as expected.
• Shift double click the $.!Boot application on your SD card to open a Filer window. Double click the DOSDisc image file Loader in that window to open a Filer window on that.
• Make a backup folder and drag the RISCOS/IMG to that folder to back it up (in case of problems later – you can access this from any other computer to replace it if you need to)
• Double click $.tmp.BCM2835Dev/5/nn/zip to open a SparkFS Filer window.
• Drag the file riscos/img from $.tmp.BCM2835Dev/5/nn/zip to the Filer window $.!Boot.Loader – this will replace the rom.
• Power cycle your Pi. Do not shut down cleanly, but simply cut the power. This will make sure the OS can’t write any (old) settings to the new RISCOS/IMG file.
  [*) Before anyone screams ‘SACRILEGE!’ – yes, RISC OS should be able to handle this…]
• That should have done it. Now check if everything works as expected. Report any problems you can’t solve yourself in the previously mentioned forum thread. And remember, no guarantees.
• Make sure the same ROM modules are unplugged as before if you need to using the *Unplug (if any).

N.B. if you get errors, it might be because of incompatible settings with the old $.!Boot.Choices.Boot. In which case, you might need to remove everything inside $.!Boot.Choices.Boot and reset boot using the utility.