Symptom: RISC OS not recognising its partition

[trevj]

As outlined by a few others at "error on boot"
http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... 55&t=22173
there appear to be some problems with the RISC OS image and certain combinations of board/SD card.

After experiencing similar issues myself on the eve of the RISC OS London Show (27 October 2012) and on the day itself, I mentioned them to Liz in person at the show. She advised me to post in the troubleshooting forum, and it's taken me until now to do so (I bought a new SD card, to double check).

• Using Windows (Vista) and Win32DiskImager (IIRC) to write the image - sorry!
• Using the official download RO image; a previous alpha version with SDFS worked on this board/card/PSU during the summer
• Reformatted card (4GB) before writing (in first case, second was virgin card)
• Tried 2 different cards (2 separate downloads/writes on the first, 1 on the second)
• Card worked in another board at the show (I have an early-ish one)
• Another card worked with my board/PSU
• Had some intermittent success with another PSU and my board/card, but couldn't repeat this at home
• Not sure how I do the equivalent of "sync" under Windows, as mentioned in the other thread - I did the "Eject drive safely" thing, so I guess it was correctly dismounted

Apparently a couple of components (fuses?) on the board have been changed since mine was produced. I can upload a photo if that would help.

Any help gratefully appreciated. Thanks!

[itimpi]

Are you using an external USB based SD writer? Many built into PC's seem to give problems. I had one and the card in it would 'sometimes' work. I switched to an external USB SD card writer and since then I have had no problems.

[BadWolf1959]

@trevj.....thanks for taking it up with Liz, I'm the originator of the subject you bumped this from, and it's great to get all the help I can!

As I said on the original thread I've never seen RISC OS before and have no idea how to troubleshoot this, for that matter I'm very much a noob on Linux!
I have tryed the "official" download, I've tried the image file from the RISC OS website....neither of these has been a successful boot.

I've imaged my 4GB SD card 3 different times using the Win32DiskImager on a copy of W7 Pro.

I've used the same laptop/software combo to image multiple 4 and 8GB cards using Raspbian and they have all worked completely correct. So I am baffled by this not working for RISC and wondered if it is an issue with the image itself? But really don't know what to think as my experience level is so low on all this.
I did get a formating program from the .org that does the SD card standards stuff, and did a full wipe of the 4GB card before the last image writing, but came to the same end.

Thats about the point where I've given up on RISC for now, if you can find a straight forward answer to this mystery I'm all ears for it and will come around to play with it some more!

Thanks for any help, Wolf

[trevj]

I switched to an external USB SD card writer and since then I have had no problems.

Thanks - no, I was using the inbuilt one. I'll try an external adapter some time soon-ish. Cheers.

[svrsig]

This problem with SDFS not recognising the RISC OS partition seems to occur with a particular combination of SD card, power supply and Raspberry Pi version. The version immediately prior to the one with mounting holes seems indicated and certain SD cards. Changing the SD card seems to overcome it and the SD card that failed then seems to fail on some other Raspberry Pi boards as well. Swapping power supplies was not so likely to overcome the problem but a poor power supply could present the same or similar symptoms. Sometimes RISC OS would boot and a rather obscure problem with Netsurf would surface when opening welcome/html when the SD card was 'almost working'.

[deadkenny]

I get Wheezy working fine on my Pi but have this problem not seeing the drive on the RISC OS image. I've tried through various card reader/writers, internal and external, as most wouldn't work with my cards (some SD HC), but the one built into my netbook works fine for Wheezy and certainly seems to burn the RISC OS image without complaint to what seems to be the correct size.

Anyway the RISC OS image still has this problem. As for the Pi, not sure on the version, but there aren't any mounting holes. Markings say Raspberry Pi (c) 2001 and 'E2212RSV1.0B1.1'. Power supply is the recommended RS one, 5V 1200mA

Oh, and I write the image on linux with DD as per the standard instructions (I refuse to use Win32DiskImager due to their critical unresolved bug that could potentially wipe the host OS).