Formating Reliance File System - ETS

[dwisti]

I wanted to start using the Reliance File system on my ETS systems but I can seem to get pass formating the IDE hard drive.  Here is the error message I'm getting:

Beginning format.
Resetting MBR
relFs_Format v2.10.1053
Copyright (c) 2003-2006 Datalight, Inc.
Writing file system...100
Block size: 8192
Total blocks: 16776816
Used blocks: 1031
Free blocks: 16775785
Writing bot record and chain loader.
Error -1: Unknown driver I/O write error
Format failed.
Press any key to continue...

If I format the hard drive with FAT, everything is fine.  I'm using MAX v4.4.1f0 to create the "Desktop PC Utility USB drive". 

Any ideas on why Reliance can not format without any errors?

David

[Riconquistiamola]

Hi David,

What type of HDD are you using?
Is this a Desktop PC or an NI PXI controller?
For what version of LabVIEW Real-Time are you creating the USB Utility?

With more information I am confident we can solve your problem. Cheers.

[dwisti]

Michael,
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB
Desktop PC
Labview Real-Time 8.5.1

David

[Riconquistiamola]

David,

Thank you for your replies.

1. How many partitions do you have? What are the sizes of the partitions?
2. When you format, are you selecting to format the single partition or all partitions?
   
3. If you are formatting only one partition, is it possible to try choosing the option to delete all the partitions and format the hard-drive as Reliance and see whether you get the error?

I am working with our developers to reproduce this internally. I will let you know what we find. Cheers.

P.S. While I was typing this message a bug flew onto my screen, right onto your icon. I became confused as to whether there were two bugs or just one ...


Message Edited by Riconquistiamola on 07-21-2008 11:25 PM

[dwisti]

Michael,
I have not used any tools, like Partition Magic, to view/delete partitions.  I'm just using whats on the "Desktop PC Utility USB drive".  Here's the steps I've done to use Reliance:

1) Boot PC with USB
2) Select 6, format hard disk
3) Select 1, Reformat the first RT-compatible partition on the drive
4) Select 2, Reliance
5) Do you wish to format, yes
6) Error message as above is shown

Since this did not work, I tryed the following steps:

1) Boot PC with USB
2) Select 6, format hard disk
3) Select 2, Erase all partitions and create a single new partition
4) Select 2, Reliance
5) Do you wish to format, yes
6) same exact error message as above is shown...

I hope this answers your questions.

PS
I hope you did not mistake my virtual bug as real one and try and squash it

David

[dwisti]

Michael,
Some more info that may or may not help.  If I try and let the system boot the hard disk, the following shows on the screen:

Transfering control to user program.
User program stopped at exception: 13
The current thead was 0
CS:EIP=0018:0002C2B4, SS:ESP=0020:00071D80
EAX=00000000 EBX=00000000 ECX=00000000 EDX=00000000
ESI=00000000 EDI=00000000 EBP=00000000 EFL=00000293
DS=0020 ES=0020 FS=0028 GS=0020
No host debug possible.

Fatal error KERNEL.146080: System halted.
ETS Monitor halting with error code 200D.

David

[dwisti]

Michael,
I took the liberty of trying a different hard drive in the same PC.  This was a Western Digital IDE Caviar WD400BB-00JHC0 40GB.  Reliance formated fine and on reboot loaded LV-RT just fine.  Seems like Reliance doesn't like the Seagate HDD for some reason.

David

[Riconquistiamola]

Hey David,

I tested a Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250 Gb SATA HDD and it formatted Reliance without issue. Unfortunately I don't have a Seagate Barracuda IDE HDD to test here.

I spoke with a developer and we think there's a bad sector on your HDD. The format utility (FAT & Reliance) on the USB program doesn't identify/mark bad sectors as diligently as a Windows format.

Can you format the HDD for FAT using Windows, then attempt to install Reliance?

Cheers.

[dwisti]

I formatted the HDD (FAT32) with PartitionMagic 8.0 floppys.  I made sure the bad sector check was on.  Everything formatted fine and there were no bad sectors.  This is a brand new HDD.  After the format, I attempted to format Reliance.  Still getting the same error.

[Texas_Diaz]

David,

We saw similar odd behavior with one of our systems, a 16-core system we put together ourselves for testing RT performance.   We could format and boot the hard disk absolutely fine with FAT, and it "looked" as if we could format the hard disk absolutely fine with Reliance, but when we actually attempted to boot with Reliance we would crash the kernel as soon as it attempted to do anything (the same crash that you're seeing when you attempt to boot after a failed format attempt). 

The problem we had was with the hard drive communication strategy that Reliance uses; ETS couldn't communicate with the hard disk because the BIOS was "controlling" the hard disk in a fashion that the Reliance subsystem couldn't handle.  We aren't quite sure why that was, we think it has to do with the mode in which the BIOS was emulating the hard disk.  What we eventually figured out was that if we forced/set the IDE controller to control the hard disk in "Legacy" or "Compatible" mode, then everything worked as expected.  However, if we allowed the hard disk to be controlled in "Native" mode (even though you normally see "Native" mode for SATA drives, not IDE drives) Reliance was a non-contender.

I would like to see if we can force the IDE hard disk into a Legacy or Compatible mode through the BIOS.  If you cannot figure out how to do so, can you point me to a manual from your motherboard manufacturer?  I'd bet this would possibly solve your problem. 

And, of course, if this *doesn't* solve your problem, then we'll need to invoke some ETS kung-foo and instrument some OS calls to see which of the hundred calls we're making are bombing out (my guess is the first call is bombing out, but there's no way to tell so far).

-Danny