Need help installing XP on a Sandisk CF card ( removable bit set)

[alpher]

Hi, I usually try to find the solution before asking for help, but this time I run out of ideas.
I'm trying to setup some sort of "tweenie" system (its a P3/650Mhz on some generic i810 mobo).
My goal is to have to dual boot DOS and Win XP of the CF card in the first IDE chanel, have CDrom on secondary and
dual floppies.
Hardwarewise everything seems to cooperate, I partitioned the CF (32GB Sandisk) in 2 partitions , 1GB for DOS and
the rest for XP.
DOS 7.1 instaled smoothly, I boot from Windows instll CD and bam! "windows cannot instal to removable drive".
Looks like I'have rediscovered the famous "removable versus fixed bit " problem.
Fine, found a supposed fix , a program named atcfwchg.com , that is supposed to change the bit from removable to
fixed.
I run it from pure DOS, comes with fail message , error 7 and from within XP at CMD prompt, returns error 20.
Now, I know I can buy a different CF card but they don't come cheap anymore, is there a solution?
Ideally I need a way to turn that damn Sandisk CF into a fixed disk mode.
If this turns out to be impossible, i'm open to other possible solutions, here's my order of preference:

1 somehow turn the damn bit to "fixed"
2 find another way to install and succesfully run dualboot DOS/Xp on the same disk
3 Try to run dualboot DOS/linux (what kind?.)

All I really needed XP for was to be able to easyly browse the net and Lan.

 

[Agent Orange]

Hi, I usually try to find the solution before asking for help, but this time I run out of ideas.
I'm trying to setup some sort of "tweenie" system (its a P3/650Mhz on some generic i810 mobo).
My goal is to have to dual boot DOS and Win XP of the CF card in the first IDE chanel, have CDrom on secondary and
dual floppies.
Hardwarewise everything seems to cooperate, I partitioned the CF (32GB Sandisk) in 2 partitions , 1GB for DOS and
the rest for XP.
DOS 7.1 instaled smoothly, I boot from Windows instll CD and bam! "windows cannot instal to removable drive".
Looks like I'have rediscovered the famous "removable versus fixed bit " problem.
Fine, found a supposed fix , a program named atcfwchg.com , that is supposed to change the bit from removable to
fixed.
I run it from pure DOS, comes with fail message , error 7 and from within XP at CMD prompt, returns error 20.
Now, I know I can buy a different CF card but they don't come cheap anymore, is there a solution?
Ideally I need a way to turn that damn Sandisk CF into a fixed disk mode.
If this turns out to be impossible, i'm open to other possible solutions, here's my order of preference:

1 somehow turn the damn bit to "fixed"
2 find another way to install and succesfully run dualboot DOS/Xp on the same disk
3 Try to run dualboot DOS/linux (what kind?.)

All I really needed XP for was to be able to easyly browse the net and Lan.

Question: When you installed DOS 7.1 on the CF, did you FDISK and FORMAT using DOS? What I would do is boot with a WIN98SE startup floppy, then FDISK the C: partition for DOS and then create the D: partition for XP. I have an i815 for a "tweener" and that's how I set mine using a SanDisk Ultra.

 

[alpher]

Aalmost exactly the way I did it, booted from DOS floppy, fdisk then format c: . Just the way it was supposed to be in the day.
Then i tred to install XP on the extended partition by booting from XP cd, tried both unformated and formated partitions, no difference.
"Windows won't install on removable drive"

 

[Agent Orange]

Aalmost exactly the way I did it, booted from DOS floppy, fdisk then format c: . Just the way it was supposed to be in the day.
Then i tred to install XP on the extended partition by booting from XP cd, tried both unformated and formated partitions, no difference.
"Windows won't install on removable drive"

I know the frustration. Try this link and run the U3 uninstaller and see if it helps: http://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2550/~/removing/uninstalling-u3-launchpad-on-a-pc

 

[alpher]

Quite frankly I don,t understand.
When and how should I run the uninstaller?
Should I run it under system Running windows with the CF plugged to USB adapter?

 

[Agent Orange]

Quite frankly I don,t understand.
When and how should I run the uninstaller?
Should I run it under system Running windows with the CF plugged to USB adapter?

You need to run it against your CF card in what ever system that you have available.

 

[Chuck(G)]

I run XP from both CF and Microdrive. As I recall, you can use Win9x/DOS/Gparted to create a single bootable partition on a CF drive, then proceed to install XP to it. Once XP is running, use one of the filter drivers to mask the "removable" bit. You can then add partitions to the drive and even use it for your paging file. Theoretically, you can add the filter when XP install asks for additional disk drivers, but I don't recall doing that.

N.B. I use the original release (no SP's) of XP Pro to do the initial installation. I suspect that later releases are more restrictive. Another way is to install the evaluation version of XPe, to get started, add the filter drivers, then follow up with a full XP installation.

I recall that it was very frustrating at first. If you want me to give it another try to refresh my memory, I'm willing to do that.

 

[alpher]

Thank you, I'm going to try Agent's solution first.
I'll do it toniht, now is the time to do some work outside, I've got tons of leaves to blow
If it doesn't work I may try the PE way.
Let you know how it goes.
Thanks again.

 

[Agent Orange]

Thank you, I'm going to try Agent's solution first.
I'll do it toniht, now is the time to do some work outside, I've got tons of leaves to blow
If it doesn't work I may try the PE way.
Let you know how it goes.
Thanks again.

Al,

One other thing comes to mind; with the CF in place, do a FDISK /MBR. I seem to remember getting past some CF problems with that. BTW, the CF in my 815 is a SanDisk Ultra 32 GB, with a 1.8 GB DOS partition and the rest is XP. As an aside, XP on my PIII machine is not going to win any races, but it is serviceable.