Beagleboad -xm despair

I have been an Acorn user from the year dot, and have used a Beagleboad -xm for vital things for maybe the last ten. A CMOS battery and RTC had been added. desktop
Recently I attempted to format a Flashdrive, and that attempt wiped out the Flashdrive that was the Beagleboards main memory which carried !Boot. So far so bad…

A power-off restart resulted in “RISC OS 512MB / Cortex A8 Processor / Acorn SCSIFS / No keyboard present -autobooting / Waiting for boot drive to be ready; press Escape to cancel.” There /was/ a keyboard present, and fully functional. Pressing Escape brought up the Supervisor. Entering Desktop produced low resolution rudimentory Desktop. Putting in my Backup Flash resulted in “Error when reading SCSI::0.$ – Disc not understood. Has it been formatted?” Clicking the OS icon showed “SDFS::RISC.$” and all the expected SD files. The LAN lights flickered, and Apps was available.

Panic was rising, so I bought a RISC OS Open SD card from ROOL, on the expectation that I would then be able to recover all my personal stuff, primarily from a backup program by druck on a flashdrive and another one containing a full copy of everything. This produced exactly the same results, except that the SD icon stated “No drive present”. This is desterately disappointing. It was bought under the impression that it would avoid the frostrations of installing RISC OS including pre-loaded applications and networking, and would just involve putting it in and switching on. I would have used !SDCreate, but this would have needed a RISC OS machine, but all that I now have do not have USB ports and, of course, the Beagleboard uses nothing else.

Now what? How does one know if the board is OK? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated

hi Mark have you loaded Fat32FS if so maybe try unmounting the scsi drive then right clicking to get the Risc os drive. if you have an sdcard in to boot a left click will open fat32fs and a right will open the risc os part of the drive.

I’ve got nowhere trying to load anything :-) I have previously tried a !Boot on an old HardDrive, no joy. I have just found a spare 32GB Flash, formatted it FAT32, downloaded HD4, and installed !Boot from there on the Flash, made Bootable, but again, no joy. Cannot unmount the Flash because Right or Left click brings up the “SCSI::0.$ – Disc not understood. Has it been formatted?” error. Right or Left click on the SDcard simply shows its contents on my original card, and “The disc drive is empty” with the new ROOL one.

If I may add some irrelevencies – the BB is installed in an old A7000 chassis, so I am thoroughly earthed before I touch anthing, both cards are 16GB, and the PSU is a switched 5.1V 5A one, so very adequate…

I have just found a spare 32GB Flash, formatted it FAT32, downloaded HD4, and installed !Boot from there on the Flash,

I am not sure you can do that. The boot medium should be formatted filecore, otherwise you have a chicken and egg situation. In order to read a Fat32fs drive, you need the Fat32fs module loaded, but you need to load the module from the drive.

Cannot unmount the Flash because Right or Left click brings up the “SCSI::0.$ – Disc not understood. Has it been formatted?

If the FAT partition is greater the 4GB then you will need the fat32fs module loaded.

The boot medium should be formatted filecore, otherwise you have a chicken and egg situation. In order to read a Fat32fs drive, you need the Fat32fs module loaded, but you need to load the module from the drive.

If you can build your own ROM it’s possible to add the fat32fs module. Provided the FAT partition is <= 4GB then RISC OS can boot off just a FAT partition.

Yes – I have pondered on this, but a decade is rather a long time for someone past their prime to remember things: in other words, I cannot recall how I first got the Beagleboard running. I probably used a RISC PC, but how? The RPC has no USB ports, so I could not have formatted the Flash to Filecore. This is another reason why I bought a ready-programmed sdcard for the BB in the vain hope that it would do what I cannot do for myself. So what can I do? As you say – chicken and egg. Were the BB running RISC OS I could easily use HForm to Filecore format a Flashdrive. Without a running BB I cannot load anything, and to have a running BB I have to have Fat32fs from a drive which I cannot have until the BB is running… Additionally, I guess that !SDCreate will be needed to make an SD image, and that requires RISC OS. Oh dear…

Can you actually use your keyboard? E.g. if you open Edit can you type things in?

From your post, can I check if I’ve understood Mark?

• You have an SD card called “RISC” and you can read everything on there fine
• You have a new Beagle SD card from RISC OS Open, but you haven’t been able to open it at all yet
• You have a USB memory stick formatted to FAT32, and you are not able to open it at all on your Beagleboard.

Also, if your keyboard is working can you press F12, type

*Unplug

press enter, and tell us what you get.

This thread is getting a bit muddled :-)

On DavidS’s instructions I have made a near as dammit 2GB FAT16 formatted Bootable primary partition, and placed the !Boot from HD4 within it. Sadly, I now get a Desktop that gives the error “An application that loads a file of this type has not been seen by the Filer. Open a Directory display containing the required application and try again” for any filer action.

Perhaps this Beagleboard terminally faulty. I’m haunted by how its main memory Flash was wiped clean when I intended to format another Flashdrive. I can’t prove it, but I was very careful. Perhaps its downfall was due to a hardware glitch…

To DavidS: The SD socket has never been any observed trouble previously.

To Julie Stamp: In SDFS::RISC:$ I have BOOT/SCR CMOS MLO preen/txt riscos U-BOOT/BIN UENV/TXT
The original SDcard shows the above, but the new ROOL card says “The disc drive is empty”
The USB Memory Flash is actually FAT16 formatted, and cannot be opened (see above). In error I previously formatted it to FAT32, with the same result.

From the embrionic Desktop I cannot use f12 or access the Command Line. Restarting, I get to the ‘star’ of the Command Line and can do an f12, which gives “This is the shellCLI. Press return without entering any text to return to the Desktop” which doesn’t actually do that, but returns to a “star”

*unplug returns “No modules are unplugged”

Any times ago I had the same problem. My cmos-file was corrupt.
If you type
*status
wich filesystem and drive is set?
If you type
*SCSIFS
*!Boot
when your device is plugged, is !Boot running?
All before you enter desktop.

Surely someone on this forum could send you a working card clone to see if it’s your hardware that’s damaged!

I, unfortunately, am a RPi guy, so can’t help directly!

On DavidS’s instructions I have made a near as dammit 2GB FAT16 formatted Bootable primary partition, and placed the !Boot from HD4 within it.

When you have done this entirely on a non-RISC OS machine, then the RISC OS file types are missing.

If you have done all on a non-RISC OS machine then the procedure would be as follows:
The best way to handle this would be to put the HardDisc4 ZIP image on a FAT16 device and also put a self-extracting SparkPlug installer on the FAT16 device. First create SparkPlug then use SparkPlug to extract the contents into the root of the FAT16 image (this now preserves the file types)…

As DavidS indicated below use the Self Extracting 5.28 HD image instead

and use the RISC OS 5.28 ROMS in that case too of course…

To Raik: *status gives File System SCSI, CDROM drives 1, SDFS drive 0, SCSI drive 0
*SCSIFS gives "File not found (error number &D6)
*!Boot gives “An application that loads a file of this type has not been seen by the Filer. Open a Directory display containing the required application and try again (error number &409)” so !Boot is not running

To John W: Maybe someone could send a working sdcard, but Beagleboard users are likely to be few and far between. I also am an “RPi guy”, but prefer RISC OS when security is needed (don’t confuse the thread by answering that one!) :-)

An application that loads a file of this type has not been seen by the Filer. Open a Directory display containing the required application and try again

The above error message tells us very clearly that RISC OS is running (it is an RISC OS error message), so, equally clearly, your BBxM is not damaged.

To John W: Maybe someone could send a working sdcard, but Beagleboard users are likely to be few and far between. I also am an “RPi guy”, but prefer RISC OS when security is needed (don’t confuse the thread by answering that one!

I’m a RISC OS RPi guy!

Perhaps if you have a working RPi running RISC OS, that might help!

Can you write an image to a card? Maybe one of my Pandora Images are working. Can try on my xM.
What gives *cat ?

If you can get RISC OS to boot to the Supervisor prompt, it should then be possible to create a RAMDisc (e.g. by entering *Desktop and using the Tasks window). This gives you a “Filecore partition” to unpack the other components.

Here’s one possible way of doing it:

• Grab a recent HForm from the Packages server
• Grab the self-extracting SparkFS from Miscellaneous downloads
• If you haven’t already done so, get the HardDisc4 archive from Miscellaneous Downloads as well.
• Copy them to your FAT16 formatted USB drive
• Start RISC OS on the BeagleBoard and enter *Desktop to reach a (low-res) desktop.
• In RISC OS, create a RAMDisc (using the “Tasks” window). 60MB should be ample.
• Copy SparkFS to the RAMDisc, set its filetype to “Utility” and double-click. Install it in the RAMDisc.
• Load SparkFS and unpack HForm to the RAMDisc.
• Use HForm to format another USB drive (NOT the 2GB one!) to FileCore format.
• Using SparkFS, unpack the HardDisc4 archive to the FileCore format USB drive.

No risk (for me), no fun ;-)
Here is an old 2GB image but I’m not sure what is inside. I mean is a basic system. Hope that helps.

I’m haunted by how its main memory Flash was wiped clean when I intended to format another Flashdrive.

I can’t help but wonder if this was a side effect of deficient wording in the formatter.

Perhaps this Beagleboard terminally faulty.

No, it isn’t. If you can see a message from RISC OS, it’s working.

“An application that loads a file of this type has not been seen by the Filer.

Hang on, guys, wait a moment…

*Opt 4 2 perhaps?

https://www.riscosopen.org/wiki/documentation/show/*Opt 4

but a decade is rather a long time for someone past their prime to remember things

You’re complaining about a decade? Jeez, I have trouble remembering things a dec-hour ago… Yet oddly enough can remember lyrics to random songs of the 80s (tween/teen years). Like La Isla Bonita or THE FINAL COUNTDOWN (ba-ba-baaa-bah), all of which are completely useless thirty or so years later…

First of all, many thanks for all the folk who have offered assistance to solve my problem – it is almost back to normal, but I will have to install FAT32fs to be able to use my Backups.

Once again – many thanks for all for their collective patience :-)

a decade is rather a long time for someone past their prime to remember things

Depends what things. Some things never did stick, not even when I was in my prime; and some things I still remember without problems. Not just things from my youth, either. It’s what the things are that determines whether I remember them, not when the memory is from.

I think at 71 I’m probably past my prime.

Obviously different people have different experiences in this matter.

Beat you there – I’m 75 :-) Now we wait to be trampled over by the over 80’s…

I remember my first (ahem…) as if t’was yesterday – and she, firmly, remains my wife after 51 years. At 75 I’m /very/ past my prime and miss the virility of youth .

Other memories are of the wincemaking things that I got badly wrong, but cannot exorcise. And then there are the lost memories of formulae in spreadsheets that I wrote, but now cannot fathom out what they mean :-)

- and praise for DBack and Drest by Dave Higton, which restored so many of the files that I feared lost. Now my Beagleboard is back in solid form again and for me, well worth the heartache and time.