I have tried to install RouterOS into a CF in a onboard adapter.
The CF is handled as a slave disc on the first IDE channel.
I have written (as I alwas do) the install disc image to the CF and the installation starts but fails when it tries to create the filesystem.
The system is a iBase FWA9106. I have also searched for a jumper or BIOS setting that swaps the master and slave disc, but couldn´t find any.
Any ideas, Paul Eriksson
Then you’re blown 
…
RouterOS will ONLY run from /dev/hda, i.e. IDE primary master. Sorry…
Well, not that blown, after all. You have to use a IDE flash-module, that you can drop directly into the mainboards’ (primary) IDE connector. Makes I successfully use include Pretec, and PQI.
Best regards,
Christian Meis
[quote=“cmit”]Then you’re blown …
RouterOS will ONLY run from /dev/hda, i.e. IDE primary master. Sorry…
I got a support mail from iBase this morning saying:
“About Master/Slave selection for CF, we reserved this function but we didn’t solder header or jumper on MB893-B1. Please refer attached picture that shows the JP2 location. You can short the two pins of JP2 to test.”
Some soldering and it all worked, but why not soldering a jumper base into it from the beginning 
and document the feature.
Nice to hear that - and yes, why not just solder that damned jumper on there in the beginning?! 
Well, at least you have a working solution 
Best regards,
Christian Meis
since 2.9 it doesn’t matter where you install it, it will boot from whatever drive you first install it on, includes secondary master, secondary slave etc.
WHAT? ARE YOU SURE?
That would be GREAT, too good to believe…
Best regards,
Christian Meis
thats old news christian, where have you been living? yes, it is true and it is possible since first version of 2.9
moreover - it doesn’t even care where you installed it. it will even work if you chgange IDE0 to IDE1 and slave to master.
Damn, you’re right. Just verified by plugging a IDE-DOM into secondary port, and it’s just booting.
I REALLY have missed that one completely…
That opens up some nice possibilities to use hardware that was unusable until now… VERY nice!
But when/where was this announced? Never saw it in the forum, and the 2.9 changelog back to the first beta show nothing related to booting apart from
What’s new in v2.9beta2:
*) improved system booting;
Was it that one?
Would have saved me some time and money to know that before …
Best regards,
Christian Meis
Normis, it didn´t work to install into /dev/hdb, but when i shorted the JP2 and the disc was handeld as a master disc the installation worked smoothly. I will test the installed CF in an other FWA9106 box, which doesn´t have the JP2 shorted. I´ll be back for the results.
if you installed it on a local disk in the windows machine, and then plugged it into another machine, it could have problems, because the actuall install takes place the first time you boot it. so if it does not boot, you should put the CF in another PC, boot from it (it will work on a normal PC), it will complete the installation and then put it in your special iBase system
Normis, this was what I did:
-I wrote the Install-image to the CF using USB adapter on my windoze, this is what I always do
-I installed the CF into the CF socket on the iBase system.
-The system booted from the slave disc in the 1:st IDE channel
-I marked the packages I wanted and hit install.
-The installation find the slave disc and started to partitioning and format it, but failed.
-When I had the support mail from iBase I soldered the jumper, so that the CF disc are handeled as a master drive.
-I restarted the process and it all worked.
I have now tested the same installed CF into another iBase, without soldering, and that also works. It´s now a slave.
So, the results of my testing are that the installation won´t work on a slave drive. Is this right or is it a bug in the installation image?
BR, Paul Eriksson
i think it is some interesting way of how your ibase works. all tested systems don’t care about drive mode (pri/sec or ma/sl)
I have seen comparable strange things with some other embedded boards. E.g. on some Portwell boards, Pretec IDE-DOMs are always recognized as Slave, even if jumpered as Master. PQI DOMs work.
When the Pretec DOM is in those systems (as Slave) a netinstall will fail, too. (I suppose due to strangeness of IDE device mapping.)
For such cases it’s handy to just have a “standard” PC around where you can put the DOM (or CF, for that matter) in and do the installation there. As Normunds said, RouterOS doesn’t even care if it’s running on a different IDE port than at installation time (just tested this successfully).
Best regards,
Christian Meis
I now have the same experience, so I will have a “standard” in case I have install problems.
Thanks for all input,
BR, Paul