Can someone help me out burning a image to a cf card within windows. I have 2.9.20 install-image.img and I am trying to burn this image to the cf card from a x86 box does anyone know how to get this image onto the card easily as my soekris box wont boot without it and I do not know linux very well.
Thanks for any help…
There are several ways you can try:
Use CF to IDE Converter. Put CF on converter, and install it using CD-Boot installer. After finish installing, move CF to the board.
Using netinstall. But I never tried this before on Soekris board.
You can do it also from Windows, for procedure refer to this link:
http://www.mikrotik.com/Documentation/how-to-write.html
Regards.
P.S. you can use USB card readers to connect the CF Disk.
I tried the physwrite program but I cannot choose a drive to write to. Maybe it is they way I am doing it. I have a 7 in 1 card reader that the CF is in drive F so how do I pick a drive to write too?
look in my computer to find out which drive it is. the card reader should appear as 7 new drives, each with their own letter.
I suggest you to use Netinstall though
First I copy physdrivewrite, and MT immage at C:\ (easer to lacate files), than you run pysdrivewrite and give the image name (complete name with extension), and than choose the drive, in your case the drive F:, if that is not the right one, you will not be able to write. Than you can try with drive G:, H:\ etc etc, until the drive can be open for write.
Regards.
I have tried Netinstall and it writes the image and the routeros package fine. I am using a Soekris 4801-60 with lan1621 board I have two of these boxes and niether one will boot from the Sandisk 512 CF cards I have used with the image I wrote to them using netinstall. I wrote MT image 2.9.20 and routerOS package full for x86.
I am going to try a IDE to CF adapter and use the netinstall boot floppy to write the image over the network to see if that makes a difference.
Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated..
Chris
I tried the physwrite program but I cannot choose a drive to write to. Maybe it is they way I am doing it. I have a 7 in 1 card reader that the CF is in drive F so how do I pick a drive to write too?
It prompts for the disks that it sees, and the ones you want to use. You should see at least 2 disks, your computer harddrive and the removable drive…disk numbers start with 0, so you’d put in 0 or 1 depending on which is displayed as your removable drive. Are you following the directions as far as adding the image name to write when you run this in the CLI?
You can use the netinstall on a 4801. Configure your computer and netinstall IP settings. Then bootup the 4801, hit control-P on boot up and type “boot f0” at the prompt. Note that the Soekris com speed by default isn’t 9600 so you’ll need to change it to see anything if your serial is at 9600. The default is 38400 or 19200 (can’t remember which).
Note: A lot of the new Sandisk flash cards pause for up to 3 minutes before they bootup.
Writing CF image on CF cards under WinXP works perfect here.
We use cheap USB Cardreaders with CF Slot.
Use physdiskwrite from the m0n0wall project. The DOS box has to run
with Administrator privileges.
c:> runas /User:Administrator cmd
and type in Administrator password.
Then choose the right device. For me its "2".
I successfully write MikroTik 2.9.26 CF img into the CF card but when I boot from the CF, it shows installation…
How can I install from a CF to the same CF??? 
Can I do an installation from the CD Image to the CF card?
I have installed RouterOS into CF disk with CD image, but that was in the machine which had an interface for CF disks built in the Motherboard and also had the CD-ROM, but in your case just leave it to complete the instalation.
Regards.