From Joseph.Pareti at hp.com Mon Apr 2 12:15:31 2007 From: Joseph.Pareti at hp.com (Pareti, Joseph) Date: Mon Apr 2 12:16:19 2007 Subject: [OmniBook] can I use a usb drive as external boot device? Message-ID: I have been failing to use an IDE disk "wrapped" in an USB type enclosure as boot and root device for an HP omni 6k. Using the same disk I can however boot from another HP laptop (nc6000), which tells me that all drivers are there. So I suspect the problem is in the firmware. My question is if this is at all possible, and if it is, where can I get the right fw release. Thanks for any help, Joseph Pareti HP - Technology Solutions Group / Presales -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://zurich.csail.mit.edu/pipermail/omnibook/attachments/20070402/f21d20f4/attachment.htm From taggart at carmen.fc.hp.com Mon Apr 2 18:53:32 2007 From: taggart at carmen.fc.hp.com (Matt Taggart) Date: Mon Apr 2 18:53:59 2007 Subject: [OmniBook] can I use a usb drive as external boot device? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20070402225332.8CC515BAAC@carmen.fc.hp.com> "Pareti, Joseph" writes... > I have been failing to use an IDE disk "wrapped" in an USB type > enclosure as boot and root device for an HP omni 6k. > > Using the same disk I can however boot from another HP laptop (nc6000), > which tells me that all drivers are there. > > So I suspect the problem is in the firmware. My question is if this is > at all possible, and if it is, where can I get the right fw release. I know the ob500 (of the same release of machines, just smaller) didn't support booting from usb at first and a later firmware upgrade fixed it for me, so I suspect you are right about the ob6000. I found the ob6000 firmware on hp.com, http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareIndex.jsp?lang=en&c c=us&prodNameId=20053&prodTypeId=321957&prodSeriesId=31762&swLang=13&taskId= 135&swEnvOID=54 If that horrible url doesn't work you can get there by going to "Support&Drivers), search for "omnibook 6000" which will take you to the ob6000 support page, then click on "Download drivers and software", then "Cross operating system" and you'll get a link to the firmware. It says it's the same firmware as for the ob500, so I bet it will fix the USB booting issue (Version 4.31, 4 Nov 2002). -- Matt Taggart Open Source & Linux Organization R&D taggart@fc.hp.com Hewlett-Packard From taggart at carmen.fc.hp.com Tue Apr 3 04:59:50 2007 From: taggart at carmen.fc.hp.com (Matt Taggart) Date: Tue Apr 3 05:00:13 2007 Subject: [OmniBook] can I use a usb drive as external boot device? In-Reply-To: References: <20070402225332.8CC515BAAC@carmen.fc.hp.com> Message-ID: <20070403085950.ED6935BAAC@carmen.fc.hp.com> "Pareti, Joseph" writes... > Hi, thanks for your reply. It looks to me that the link you proposed > applies to windows; infact I am running red hat enterprise linux > (release 3, based on 2.4). What can I do? It's been years since I did it (a bunch of us in the Linux lab at HP had the same laptops). The Windows utility just prompts you to insert a floppy and then writes a bootable image to it, you don't have to do it on the omnibook itself. I think we had find and borrow an actual Windows machine to generate the floppy and then we shared it. Once you have one floppy you can make an image of it with dd and then write new floppies when needed. If you can't find a real Windows machine maybe someone on the list who has access to one could produce an image for people to use. I tried running the utility under Wine and it started a GUI Window explaining it was going to write a floppy, but uses some real mode stuff when trying to write the floppy and doesn't seem to work. It might be possible somehow but I didn't try too hard. Just a similar note while we're on the topic: for years lots of firmware update utilities (not just from HP) were delivered as DOS utilities that create a floppy. I've been able to deal with some of these by creating a bootable FreeDOS floppy/CD with the utility on it, boot it, run the utility to create the floppy, and then boot the floppy to do the update. Often tricky because you can't use a floppy drive you're booted from (el torito cdroms help work around this). But since this omnibook utility is a GUI Windows thing, you can't do those tricks. Fortunatately the "utility to write a utility" thing seems to have gone away and now most people seem to distribute zip files (or self-extracting zip files) with pure DOS utilities (which FreeDOS can deal with) or in some cases even Linux Utilities (the HP ProLiant stuff does Linux update utilities). Good luck, -- Matt Taggart Open Source & Linux Organization R&D taggart@fc.hp.com Hewlett-Packard From taggart at carmen.fc.hp.com Thu Apr 5 06:30:50 2007 From: taggart at carmen.fc.hp.com (Matt Taggart) Date: Thu Apr 5 06:31:17 2007 Subject: [OmniBook] can I use a usb drive as external boot device? In-Reply-To: References: <20070402225332.8CC515BAAC@carmen.fc.hp.com> Message-ID: <20070405103050.3585537D32@carmen.fc.hp.com> "Pareti, Joseph" writes... > I have created a floppy using the link at: > > And booted the omnibook 6000 using the floppy; it has updated the fw for > the 3com device (which I believe is the nic) and updated the mba > version, 4.31. As a result one may now PXE boot, etc. However there is > still no support for a usb boot at the "phoenix bios", which is my goal. Ah, I see now that was just the firmware for the 3com mini-pci card (it did say that I guess but since that was the only one on the page I mistook it for the system bios). I looked again this time under the "Windows 98" section of the support page, http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareIndex.jsp?lang=en&c c=us&prodNameId=20053&prodTypeId=321957&prodSeriesId=31762&swLang=13&taskId= 135&swEnvOID=20 There are versions 1.81, 1.82, and 1.83 of the system bios there. It says they are Windows InstallShield and that they will create a floppy. I tried running it via Wine and it looked identical to the 3com mini-pci one. -- Matt Taggart Open Source & Linux Organization R&D taggart@fc.hp.com Hewlett-Packard