COMPAQ EVO N600c Laptop USB boot issues

[jini]

Dear Creator of Plop Boot Manager,
First of all many thanks for a utility you have created. Great Work !

I have a old Compaq EVO N600c laptop with me and recently I explored using the PLOP boot manager to boot out of USB. The issue I am facing is that the selecting the USB booting options just freezes up the entire system nothing works the entire system hangs up. What I see in the screen is following message...

LOADING EHC1 DRIVER
SEARCHING ON HOSTS
DRIVER REMOVED
LOADING UHC1 DRIVER
SEARCHING ON HOSTS
HOST 1

That is the end of the message I see on the screen before the system freezes and the only way I can come out this state is to HARD boot the system.

Can you please help figure out what is going wrong, is the hardware (COMPAQ EVO N600c laptop) is supported ? How can we make this work ? Looking forward eagerly for some help

Thanks & Regards,
Sajid.

[Elmar]

hi,
try the pcmcia test version from today http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanagerdl.html
ignore the word pcmcia

regards
elmar

[jini]

Dear,
I tested your version 5.0.11 with no sucess. The system hangs just like I described earlier.
Little more information, I use the Sandisk Cruzer Blade 4GB usb drive.

Let me know if you need any more information. And thank you for your quick responses.

Regards,
Jini.

[Elmar]

does it hang too when no usb drive is connected. do you have any other usb device connected?

[jini]

Yes, it hangs even when no USB is connected (when I choose to boot from USB).
And when I am booting with my USB stick I do not have any thing else connected to the other USB slots.

[Elmar]

did you test 5.0.11-test3 too?

[jini]

No, the previous version I used is 5.0.10 and then only other version I tried is 5.0.11-pcmcia-test.

I will try the the one you recommended(5.0.11-test3) and let you know soon how it goes.

[jini]

Elmar,

I just tried the 5.0.11-test3 version and same results. The system hangs again just as described in the beginning of my thread.

Regards,
Jini.

[Elmar]

ok, the hang without usb device is good. that increases the chances for a fix. i quickly make a test version for you

how do you start the boot manager? floppy, cd, ....?

[jini]

I have installed the boot manager in my hard disk
( following the instruction provided in "Harddisk install using the Windows boot menu (2K, XP, VISTA, Win7)" ).

BTW my old laptop runs win2k OS. I start the bootmanager from my harddisk.

Regards,
Sajid.

[Elmar]

ok, download http://download.plop.at/tmp/plpbtjini.bin rename it to plpbt.bin and start plpgenbtldr and so on that you can start it from your boot.ini.

when it runs then use usb (without drive connected) and tell me the chars a-... at the top of the screen

[jini]

Hi Elmar,
I do not see any menu or boot options coming up...All I see is

X0

and nothing else....

Regards,
Jini

[Elmar]

did you run plpgenbtldr after you renamed plpbtjini.bin to plpbt.bin? maybe you need to defrag plpbt.bin too

[jini]

Ok I defragmented the file and now I am able to see bootloader menu, upon choosing the USB option I see following on the upper right corner

        1)  abcdef   (with NO USB pendrive connected)

                         and when put in the USB pen drive in the USB slot and choose to boot from usb I get to see

        2)  abcdefg  (with a USB pendrive connected)


Thanks & Regards,
Jini

[jini]

Sorry I see the message on the upper left corner, made a mistake in my last post about the positioning of debug message that appears

[jini]

Below is the correct observation, excuse me for the confusion.

        1)  abcdef   (with USB pendrive connected)
        2)  abcdefg  (with a NO USB pendrive )

[jini]

Hi Elmar,

Any idea on what's going wrong ?

Regards,
Jini

[Elmar]

no, currently i am busy. i tell you when i have news for you

regards
elmar

[walterav]

Hi Elmar,

Any idea on what's going wrong ?

Regards,
Jini

If I remember correct I tested this old notebook a while ago, and I was able to get plop boot manager to run, around the time of release version 5.04-7.

I also did a BIOS upgrade, and after the BIOS upgrade had been done I thought I had to change a usb related parameter in BIOS otherwise the boot manager would crash.

Using the plop bootmanager for the usb boot was 10/15 times faster than using the BIOS its own slow usb boot implementation.

Since the laptop is not in my possession, I can not directly test a new version...

[Elmar]

@jini

do you have a floppy drive in this laptop?

[jini]

No, I do not have floopy drive, but there is a CD ROM drive... Would that help by any means ?

[jini]

Hi Elmar,
If you have the older version (5.04-7 which you remember had worked) do pass the link across to me. I will check to see if that works by any chance on my laptop.

Regards,
Jini.

[Elmar]

Hi Elmar,
If you have the older version (5.04-7 which you remember had worked) do pass the link across to me. I will check to see if that works by any chance on my laptop.

Regards,
Jini.

the related code parts haven't been changed
try this http://download.plop.at/tmp/plpbtjini2.bin

regards
elmar

[m_a_schuster]

Hi Elmar,
If you have the older version (5.04-7 which you remember had worked) do pass the link across to me. I will check to see if that works by any chance on my laptop.

Regards,
Jini.

the related code parts haven't been changed
try this http://download.plop.at/tmp/plpbtjini2.bin

regards
elmar

Hi elmar,

Just a lurker jumping in here, if that's OK. I have been having exactly the same issue with a particular USB card reader and Dell Optiplex GX240. I can boot USB pen drives with bootmanager loaded from a floppy disk, but a SanDisk microSD card reader (that boots on other machines having BIOS support for USB boot), will not boot on the Dell. It hangs in exactly the same way and place.

However the test code you just posted (plpbtjini2.bin) works! Whatever "fix" you inserted for this test version, please keep it! It finally fixed my problem, and I hope it does for jini.

[Elmar]

@M_a_schuster:
thanks for the info

regards
elmar

[walterav]

@M_a_schuster:
thanks for the info

regards
elmar

EDIT

Yet Another Update:
The laptop model was a n610c instead of n600c, the bootloader that was working was V5.0.3 20090328. I will try the newest now, and keep ya updated.

This version of the new bootloader still boots a USB stick:
http://download.plop.at/tmp/plpbt-5.0.11-pcmcia-test2.zip

The n610c uses its latest BIOS available "F.1B 05/27/2004 /68P4F".

PCMCIA boot "SWEEX USB2.0 adapter" is also partly working, it boots the kernel of ubuntu 10.04 from the stick, but hangs halfway it will probably be the lack of Power. It misses a usb>5v input cable...

[jini]

Hi Elmar,
Sorry for the delay in reply. I had the opportunity to test plpbtjini2.bin yesterday on my laptop(compaq N600c).
It still HANGS just like before.

Please validate the sequence of booting events....I am not sure if they are OK or there is a problem in it.
When I restart my laptop boot order appears in following sequence.
1) The firmware bios boots first
2) PLOP boot manager version 5.0.11-test3 appears. ( I then choose the option to boot with hard disk from the menu)
3) The windows 2000 boot manager appears (Here I select the "PLOP boot manager". The plop bootmanager is plpbtjini2.bin and its path is set in BOOT.ini)
4) Now is when the PLOP boot manager version plpbtjini2.bin appears.
5) I select the option to boot with USB.....And the system hangs just as described in the beginning of my post. (I tried with both with USB drive and with out USB drive and observed the same response).

Let me know there is any problem in what I am doing or its some other issue
Let me know if have to try any thing new. Thank you for your help.

Regards,
Jini.

[walterav]

Hi Elmar,
Sorry for the delay in reply. I had the opportunity to test plpbtjini2.bin yesterday on my laptop(compaq N600c).
It still HANGS just like before.

Please validate the sequence of booting events....I am not sure if they are OK or there is a problem in it.
When I restart my laptop boot order appears in following sequence.
1) The firmware bios boots first
2) PLOP boot manager version 5.0.11-test3 appears. ( I then choose the option to boot with hard disk from the menu)
3) The windows 2000 boot manager appears (Here I select the "PLOP boot manager". The plop bootmanager is plpbtjini2.bin and its path is set in BOOT.ini)
4) Now is when the PLOP boot manager version plpbtjini2.bin appears.
5) I select the option to boot with USB.....And the system hangs just as described in the beginning of my post. (I tried with both with USB drive and with out USB drive and observed the same response).

Let me know there is any problem in what I am doing or its some other issue
Let me know if have to try any thing new. Thank you for your help.

Regards,
Jini.

Can you post your BIOS "legacy usb enabled etc" settings?

[callmeditch]

I have tried several versions of Bootmanager (5.0.10, 5.0.11 test2 & test3, and plpbtjini2.bin) with my Dell Latitude CPx HG500GT and have the same symptoms as reported by jini (boot from USB hangs the system).  I have tried booting with USB Legacy support enabled & disabled.  There were no other USB BIOS options or info available.

Regards,
Ditch

[callmeditch]

Aha!  Just got it to work - but weird though.  Had to start the machine without the USB drive plugged in.  At the plop menu, I selected USB and it came back with the no USB found message.  I then plugged in the drive and then selected USB and it worked.  Used 5.0.10 stable build.

[Elmar]

Aha!  Just got it to work - but weird though.  Had to start the machine without the USB drive plugged in.  At the plop menu, I selected USB and it came back with the no USB found message.  I then plugged in the drive and then selected USB and it worked.  Used 5.0.10 stable build.

is it the same with 5.0.11-test3?

[sugarfreetomato]

You could also try my magic trick:

- burn plop iso to cd
- boot your notebook with that cd
- insert usb with operating system you want to boot
- press Ctrl-Shift-U
- wait and press N
- press spacebar
- press Ctrl-Shift-U
- now press any key but N, e.g. O

[sugarfreetomato]

[...]
If I remember correct I tested this old notebook a while ago, and I was able to get plop boot manager to run, around the time of release version 5.04-7.
[...]

Same here. The problem described in this thread sounds very similar to what I am experiencing with recent Plop versions.

I would gladly test this older version 5.04-7, unfortunately I cannot find a place there to download older Plop releases.

[jini]

Dear Elmar,
Atlast this morning I found your plop boot manager V5.0.11-Test do the trick. The USB boot works now with out a glitch.

Little background on what changed this morning. I had almost given up the hope of booting from USB on this laptop, but decided today to format the harddisk and load ubuntu by physically taking the harddisk out of this compaq evo laptop and installing the ubuntu from another laptop where my CD drive works. And then I fix this in my EVO laptop and simply for fun gave it a try to boot from USB and almost as a miracle it started working with out getting hung like it happen previously. So now it is a great option to boot from USB when the CD drive is not working

Thank you Elmar for your help on this. Good luck !

Regards,
Jini.