Problem finding boot drive

I’ve acquired a Rev B Beagleboard xM which hasn’t been used for a while: it arrived with RISC OS 5.17 dated January 2010 on the uSD card, and I’ve been trying to update it to RISC OS 5.18. It doesn’t seem to be going smoothly, and I’ve not been following Beagleboard matters much until recently on account of not having one. So far, Google has failed me on this; apologies for the length…

So as not to mess up the existing settings with my experimentation, I took a new (to this Beagleboard) USB hard disc and formatted it using HForm on an Iyonix. I copied the current 5.18 disc image from this site on to it, added in the network drivers, then plugged it in to the BB as a second disc and copied the contents of the old boot disc into a folder on the new one for reference. Having done that, I shut everything down, removed the original USB disc and booted the system off the new disc. Both boot discs reported as SCSI::4 and both seemed to work fine with RO5.17.

The next step was to update the RISC OS image. Taking a new uSD card, I used SDCreate to put the 5.18 image onto it along with the other required boot files and a saved CMOS file from the 5.17 setup. After swapping to the new uSD card and rebooting, I get “Waiting for boot drive to be ready”. Swap the cards back, and it finds the disc and boots fine into 5.17. I remade the uSD card without the saved CMOS (ie. to use the ROM defaults) and I get the same effect.

Returning to the 5.18 uSD card, if I press Escape to end the boot I get the supervisor prompt. Using *Disc to cycle through the discs from SCSI::0 to SCSI::7, *Cat just reports “The disc drive is empty (Error number &11AD3)” for each drive. Unplugging and reconnecting the disc has no effect. *Desktop gets me to the desktop (with the usual warnings about not having started correctly), where the drive is still missing. However, if I now unplug and reconnect it again, it is recognised and appears on the iconbar with the correct name and contents fully accessible. I can even exit the desktop to the supervisor, do *Run !Boot and the machine will boot more or less correctly. The drive appears as SCSI::4.

Comparing the output of *Status between working 5.17 and unbooted 5.18 reveals no obvious differences. On both, SCSIFSDrive is set to ‘4’. The machine has a CMOS widget fitted.

Does anyone have any ideas what I might be doing wrong, or how I might get the USB disc recognised under 5.18?

Have you done *OPT 4,2 on the new drive to make it bootable?
From the supervisor prompt try: -
*conf.files.scsifs
*conf.scsifsdr.4
*dir scsi::4.$
*opt 4,2
*!boot
Then restart.

Also check *unplug for any differences in unplugged modules between the two versions.

Yes, I’ve done *Opt 4,2 on the disc: it boots fine under 5.17. FileSystem is set to SCSI on both OS versions, and no modules are unplugged on either.

The error doesn’t seem to be that the disc isn’t bootable, but that it isn’t being seen at all: “The disc drive is empty”. It seems that 5.18 can’t see it or initialise it (not sure what the USB protocols are) until the machine is in the desktop. As I said above, the disc can be unplugged and reconnected as many times as I like while at the supervisor prompt with no effect; once at the desktop, however, reconnecting makes the disc visible and it remains so even if I exit back to the supervisor.

Reboot or power cycle, and it has gone again.

Steve,

What version of U-Boot does it have as later versions are required as it now uses the Uenv/txt file to boot/ load the CMOS file.

I had issues when I went to 5.18 just like you are having.

If need be check the files on the card which should be:

MLO
Boot/scr
cmos
Riscos
u-Boot/bin
Uenv/txt

If need be I can send you a copy of my card as I have SCSI::4 as a hard drive as well.

I used the files linked to from the Generic OMAP Port Setup Information

I’ve just swapped back to the original external drive that came with the board, and that boots fine with 5.18. I then moved the contents of that out of the way, and put on it the 5.18 boot sequence from my own USB drive. That also boots fine with 5.18.

That seems to suggest that my external USB case (an unbranded one bought several years ago from CJE) might have to take some of the blame. I’m not sure I understand why it works OK with the 5.17 ROM and not with the 5.18, however! I’ve no idea what the provenance of the ‘working’ drive is, but it looks suspiciously like the unbranded one I bought recently from CCL that turned out to be “NewLink”. Unfortunately my two boxes use different internal interfaces, so I can’t try the next obvious idea…

Steve

Well that file shows as size 210360 and the working u-boot I have here shows as 284788.

I know that it looks like hardware related but happy to send the file if required

Doug

I used the files linked to from the Generic OMAP Port Setup Information

I think parts of that still need updating :-(

I think parts of that still need updating :-(

Any idea where the “correct” versions of the u-boot and MLO files can be found?

Any idea where the “correct” versions of the u-boot and MLO files can be found?

There are some options in the help file of the !SDCreate utility (in any download of the OMAP3 ROM). However, if you are stuck, let me know and I will send you a zip with the files.

My english is not the best, but I hope I understand the Problem.
You can not use the old 2010 CMOS with the 5.18 or 5.19 ROM.
The CMOS-Format has changed in 2011. You must create a new one with the new ROM or I can send it to you. Look at your WEB-Master-Mail.
The new CMOS-widged boots from Stick. Unplug the widget. Boot your xM via SDCard from HD and create a Bootstick and copy the HD_CMOS from HD !Boot.Choices (after Save CMOS) to Stick !Boot.Choises. Power off your xM. Plug the widged and Restart with Stick (and HD). If you have a Desktop, Load CMOS (and save CMOS?) and the HD CMOS will be on the widget.
The old u-boot and MLO will work on Rev.B Board. You can also use the files from Rev.C.
I hope my confused words are helpful.

Apologies for the long delay; I’ve been busy elsewhere.

I think things are now sorted: a combination of using the correct u-boot and MLO files (which I think I now understand better) and sorting out the CMOS settings seems to have got things going. This thread might also have been relevant.

I haven’t tried going back to the problematic disc yet, but I’ll have a look at that later on.

Thanks for all the help and advice. I’ve been surprised at the steepness of the learning curve, even for someone familiar with RISC OS.