How to boot a desktop-PC into RT directly from harddisk (without floppy disk)

[Tom*S]

Hello,

we are using a normal desktop-PC as LabVIEW real-time target (ETS).
Unfortunately, we always have to use the floppy boot disk (created with MAX) in order to boot this RT-system.

Once we had a National Instruments PXI real-time system and there was no need for that boot disk to start the system.
So, why do we have to boot the desktop-PC from a floppy disk instead of booting directly from harddisk?
Or is there a possibility to boot the desktop system without floppy disk, just like the PXI-system?

Tom S.

[dan_u]

Hi Tom,
PXI systems have the safemode application in ROM somewhere, so you'll never need a floppy drive with these. Desktop PCs don't have that so you'll need the format disk to set it up (but only once!). Once you've done this it'll boot without floppy drive.
So you'll just have to use the format disk instead of the boot disk. Careful, this will delete all data on the system (at least on the first partition).
Hope this helps,
Daniel

[Tom*S]

Hi Daniel,

thank you for your reply.
I just checked again if I can boot the RT-system without the floppy disk, from harddisk only - but that doesn't work ("DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK...").
Of course, the boot order in BIOS is set up appropriately to allow booting from harddisk.
And also, the complete software package was already installed on harddisk via MAX through the previously configured network connection.

Actually, it seems there is no boot loader installed on harddisk at RT-systems for desktop-PC's.
The boot loader has to be launched from the floppy boot disk and afterwards, the further boot program is loaded from hard disk.

Is there anyone who can boot a desktop-PC into RT without the floppy disk? And what do I have to set up in order to make it work for our system?

Thanks,
Tom S.

[dan_u]

Hi Tom

We always boot desktop systems into LV RT without floppy drives. Do you see any error message when you use the format disk?
What I do to set up a desktop PC as RT target is:
1) partition the hard drive (FAT32)
2) format the partition(s) from DOS (boot disk)
3) use the format disk to set up as RT target
4) install software using MAX
You might want to try using "fdisk /mbr" (from DOS) to rewrite the master boot record before step 3 if you encounter problems.

Daniel

[Tom*S]

Hello Daniel,

finally, I figured out what's been wrong with our RT-system.

The only problem was, that the system partition C on harddisk was not marked as "active" partition and therefore the system was not able to boot from it.

After I changed that partition into "active" (with a partition managing software) everything is fine now and we can also boot directly from harddisk.

Thank you for your support.

Tom S.

Message Edited by Tom*S on 05-22-2007 03:30 PM