BIOS Boot Loader Limitations

The following known limitations of the BIOS boot loader will be the focus of future boot loader enhancements:

  • FAT32 is not currently supported.
  • The boot loader assumes a VESA BIOS is available and the resolution is set to 640x480x16 by default. Display initialization code in the BIOS boot loader can be removed or modified to suit the target platform.
  • By default, the BIOS boot loader tries to use the VESA BIOS to initialize the video. Startup.asm and Main.c, located in %_WINCEROOT%\Public\Common\Oak\Csp\i486\Biosloader\Loader, need to be modified if a resolution other than the default is required. If you do not want the boot loader to initialize the video at all, edit the sources file and uncomment the lines that define NOVIDEO as described in the comment header.
  • A flexible user configuration file (Boot.ini) is not currently supported. Such a file would allow the user to specify the image name to load, set video resolutions, and pass Ethernet debug NIC parameters.
  • The BIOS boot loader does not contain decompression code to decompress a BIN file in order to save storage space.
  • The boot loader does not provide a mechanism for a failsafe image boot in case the primary BIN file is corrupted.
  • The storage device preparation utilities are MS-DOS utilities. Eventually, these will be Windows CE and/or Windows XP utilities.
  • Currently, floppy disk reads are single sector reads, whereas other storage devices are multiple. Some BIOSs do not allow multiple sector reads for floppy disks, but the boot loader should dynamically detect this.

See Also

x86 BIOS Boot Loader

Last updated on Wednesday, April 13, 2005

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