PXI boot priority

[peper2001]

Hi,

I have a problem with boot priorities on my PXI 8110 (firmware 2.0.1f0 - i guess it's the most up to date).

I'd like my PXI to boot normally from the internal harddrive expect if a USB key is present, it should then boot from the USB key.

The problem is I also have a SD card in my system which is recognized as a mass storage device.

If I connect the USB key, the SD card and, obviously, the internal hard drive and then instruct the bios to boot from (by order of priority):

1) the USB key

2) the internal hardrive

3) the SD card

well, the PXI boots from the USB key, as expected.

However, as soon as I remove the USB key, the SD card becomes the first boot device, which is not the expected behavior.

How could I tell my system that it should never try to boot from the SD card?

Best regards,

peper

[ThiCop]

Hello peper,

The most recent BIOS Update can be found over here:

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/9C9362590B05CD6E86256B270082164A?OpenDocument (all controllers)

http://search.ni.com/nisearch/app/main/p/bot/no/ap/tech/lang/nl/pg/1/sn/catnav:du,ssnav:sup/q/%22NI%... (8110 version 2.03)

This is indeed unusual:

- Does it still boot from hard drive if you force it to?

- Have you tried disabling the third boot option?

[peper2001]

Hi Thierry,

I've upgraded to firmware 2.0.3f0.

To illustrate my problem, here are two pics of the boot priorities in the bios:

With the SD card, the USB key and the internal hardrive connected, i set the boot priorities according to the picture below:

Note that the SD card is the third boot device

Now if I remove the USB key, the SD card suddenly becomes the first boot device!:

 

To answer your questions:

- Yes, it does boot from the internal hardrive if I change the boot priorities and set back the HDD as first boot priority

- disabling the third boot options does not help.

Help!

[ThiCop]

Hello peper,

I think it's jumping back to its "Set-Up Default" Configuration.

Can you check what your "Set-Up Default" Configuration is at your side?

[peper2001]

Yes indeed it seems to go back to its default settings. When I hit F9 in the bios (restor default), the SD card is indeed, by default, the first boot device.

I tried to make sure that the SD card is not bootable (i've set it as inactive using "diskpart") but still, the bios tries to boot from the card and i can just see a blinking underscore in the top left corner of my screen.

Any idea?

[Josh_KNH]

Is the SD Card a USB SD Card reader attached to one of the USB ports?  (Some of the instructions below assume this is the case.)

The BIOS on the PXI-8110 remembers a prioritized list for each set of unique boot devices that are found, so the following steps should address your use case:

1. Attach only the SD card and hard drive

2. Boot to BIOS setup.  Set the desired order.  Press F10 to save and reset.

3. Power down.  Insert the SD card, hard drive, and USB key.

4. Boot to BIOS setup.  Set the desired order.  Press F10 to save and reset.

Now, the BIOS should remember the desired order for each combination of boot devices.  One gotcha - the combinations may depend on the particular USB ports that you use, so you may need to stay consistent with which USB port from you attach and remove the USB key.

If for some reason that does not work, another alternative that might help is the following:

1. Plug in all your bootable devices.  Boot to BIOS Setup.  Go to the Advanced > USB Configuration

2. Note that all of the detected USB devices have a menu option that has been generated.  It will let you attempt to force the USB device to be detected as some other type of USB storage.  You could attempt to coerce the SD Card to act as a USB Floppy, for example, and see if that improves your ability to isolate that as the lowest priority boot device.

Cheers,

JoshH

[peper2001]

Hi Josh_KNH,

My SD card is connected to the PXI through a express card adaptor (link).

I followed your insctructions and tried to save a boot order for each particular configuration (with or without USB key). Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work as expected and, as soon as I remove the USB key, the SD card becomes the first boot device instead of the hard drive. If I plug back the USB key, the SD card remains the first boot device...

I then tried to make the SD card recognized as a Forced FDD (zip drive) and the USB as a Harddrive. This way, i get two boot options in the bios:

1) Boot from hard drive (and USB key set as first boot device, Internal Hard drive as second boot device)

2) Boot from Forced FDD (disabled)

which is exactly what I want:

Unfortunately, as soon as I remove the USB key, the SD card is not recognized as a Forced FDD anymore but as a hard drive and hence, becomes the first boot device:

It actually work as if the bios saved a configuration for each device, in order of detection, and not the configuration of a particular device:

One work around would be to make the SD card always recognized as device 1. But how can I do that?

Best regards,

peper

[ThiCop]

Hello pepper,

In the last situation (with the Forced FDD) it is not a 100% clear what happens when you plug the USB-device back in.

I also don't know if this specific type of set-up (ExpressCard adapter with SD Card) is an "officially supported" configuration.

I'm going to have to look deeper into this and will let you know about what I find out.

Are your boot order and settings correctly "remembered" if you don't use the ExpressCard Adapter and for example two USB-bootable devices?

[Josh_KNH]

Hello peper,
It may be that you have reached the limits of what the BIOS can do when trying to preserve boot ordering in hot plug scenarios. One other approach you can explore is to make your SD card bootable, and configure it such that the bootloader on the SD card informs the BIOS that there is no bootable media on the card. This should force the BIOS to skip your SD Card and proceed to the next boot device.

We are entering some uncharted territory here so it will require more investigation on your part, but I prototyped a simpler configuration than yours with this approach:

1. Downloaded Syslinux v5.10 (latest I could find that included windows binaries) from here.
2. After unzipping, navigated from the command line to the win64 folder (you may need to use win32 depending on your host machine)

3. Ran the command: syslinux64.exe -m -a E:
"E:" was the drive letter of my USB key.  In your case substitute the drive letter of your SD Card.  Be careful as you could easily overwrite the bootloader of your actual machine if you use the wrong drive letter.

4. Created a file on the USB key named 'syslinux.cfg' with the following content:

DEFAULT skipme

LABEL skipme
  localboot -1

From the syslinux documentation on the localboot command:

"The special value -1 causes the boot loader to report failure to the BIOS, which, on recent BIOSes, should mean that the next boot device in the boot sequence should be activated."

For my test setup, this had the intended behavior of skipping my USB key and booting to the next device in the list.

-Josh_KNH