Troubleshoot Virtual CEPC Downloads (Compact 7)

  • Article

3/12/2014

If you encounter problems while trying to create and run your virtual CEPC, it may be due to one of the following issues:

  • No Boot Loader Found
  • No Bootable OS Found
  • DHCP Timeout
  • Boot Timeout
  • Corrupted Command Prompt Input

No Boot Loader Found

When Virtual PC starts, it displays the following error message if it is unable to find a boot device with a valid boot loader:

Reboot and Select proper Boot device ``or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device

This error typically occurs when you do not configure Virtual PC with either a virtual hard disk (VHD) image or a virtual floppy disk (VFD) image that contains a boot loader.

To remedy this problem, configure your virtual machine with the VHD image included with Windows Embedded Compact as described in Create a Virtual Machine for a Virtual CEPC or configure your virtual machine with a VFD image as described in Boot Virtual CEPC from Virtual Floppy Disk.

No Bootable OS Found

When the boot loader starts, it displays the following error message if it is unable to find an OS image to boot:

ERROR: No bootable OS found!``*** Setting to lower power state ***``*** HALT ***

This error typically occurs when you use the VHD image provided with Windows Embedded Compact (which does not contain an OS image) and your boot source is configured as a boot drive rather than a network device.

To remedy this problem, complete the following steps to configure your Virtual CEPC boot loader to boot from the network device so that it can load your OS run-time image from Platform Builder.

To configure the boot loader to use the network as the boot source

  1. Reboot your Virtual CEPC.

  2. When you see the configuration menu prompts appear on the Virtual PC console, press the space bar to open the configuration menu.

  3. The boot loader presents a Main Menu of configuration options:

    [1] Show Current Settings``[2] Select Boot Source``[3] Select KITL Device``[4] Network Settings``[5] Display Settings``[6] Debug Port Settings``[7] Save Settings``[0] Exit and Continue

    Type 2 to select a boot source.

  4. The Select Boot Device menu lists two devices to boot from, a boot drive or a network device:

    [1] Boot Drive``[2] DEC21140 at PCI bus 0 dev 10 fnc 0

    Type 2 to select the network device shown. The network device, for example, DEC21140, is not an actual physical device on your computer. It is a simulated network adapter that the virtual CEPC uses for sharing the physical network adapter of your host computer. After you select the network device, the boot loader confirms your selection. For example:

    Boot Device is set to DEC21140 at PCI bus 0 dev 10 fnc 0

  5. On the Main Menu, type 1 to display the boot loader settings. The settings display includes information about the boot source, the display, kernel independent transport layer (KITL), Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), and the debug port. For example:

    Boot source: DEC21140 at PCI bus 0 dev 10 fnc 0``KITL device: DEC21140 at PCI bus 0 dev 10 fnc 0``KITL config: enabled, interrupt mode, VMINI enabled``DHCP: enabled``Display: 640 x 480 x 32 / Full Screen``Debug Port: COM1 38400 baud

    Verify that the boot source is set to the network device rather than the boot drive. In addition, verify that VMINI is enabled and that the network device is configured for KITL as shown in this example. These settings are enabled by default so that the virtual CEPC can access the network and so that you can use debugging tools and access the virtual CEPC from your development computer.

  6. Type 7 to save the settings so that you don’t have to change the boot source to the virtual network device on every subsequent boot of the virtual CEPC.

  7. Type 0 to exit and continue; this action begins the boot process.

If you do not want to boot your OS image over the network device from Platform Builder, you can create a stand-alone VHD image that contains your OS image and a boot loader. For more about creating a stand-alone VHD image, see Create a Stand-Alone Virtual Hard Disk for Virtual CEPC.

DHCP Timeout

The Virtual CEPC boot loader sends 26 DHCP discover messages before it aborts the DHCP server discovery process. When this time-out occurs, you will see an error message in the Virtual PC console similar to the following:

Send DHCP Discover Message (attempt 26)``ERROR: BootTransportPb: Failed get IP address from DHCP server!``ERROR: BootDownloadBin!ImageType: BootTransportRead Failed!

This error means that your host computer is not attached to a network or it is attached to a network without a DHCP server. To use Virtual CEPC on a host computer without a network connection or a DHCP server, see Use Virtual CEPC Without a Network.

Boot Timeout

The virtual CEPC boot loader sends sixty "BOOTME" messages before it aborts the boot process. When this time-out occurs, you will see an error message in the Virtual PC console similar to the following:

Send BOOTME Message (device name PC-0003FFC67ACA, attempt 60)``ERROR: BootDownloadBin!ImageType: BootTransportRead Failed!

If you are unable to initiate the OS image download from Platform Builder before the boot loader times out and prints this message, you can restart the virtual CEPC to retry the boot loading process. For information about restarting the virtual CEPC, see the procedure "To restart your virtual CEPC" in Download and Run a Virtual CEPC OS Run-Time Image .

Corrupted Command Prompt Input

After you successfully boot your virtual CEPC and open a Command Prompt window on the Virtual CEPC desktop, you can type commands in the same way that you would in a Command Prompt window on your host computer. If you see corrupted input appear on the Virtual CEPC command console (or, when opening the Command Prompt window, you see lines of zeroes as shown in the following figure), then you do not have the correct keyboard driver installed in your OS design.

Wrong Keyboard Driver

To remedy this problem, select the correct keyboard driver as described in "Select a Virtual CEPC Keyboard Driver" in Create a Virtual CEPC OS Run-Time Image and then rebuild your OS design.

See Also

Concepts

Create and Run a Virtual CEPC