Troubleshooting the x86 ROM Boot Loader

Use the following procedure to troubleshoot the x86 ROM boot loader.

To troubleshoot the x86 ROM boot loader

  1. Hook up a terminal emulator, such as HyperTerminal or CETerm, to COM1 and configure it for 38400 N-8-1 and no flow control.

    The boot loader will display status and error information over the connection.

  2. Check the state of the usedhcp environment variable.

    For example, with a terminal emulator program, halt the loader boot process by powering on the system and pressing any key during the countdown prompt. Then, type set to display the environment variables. When set to 1, the boot loader will use a DHCP server to obtain its IP address. When set to 0, it will use the values assigned to ip and subnet. Make sure the correct settings are being used for the network connection being used.

  3. After setting a boot loader variable with the set command, be sure you execute a store to save the settings to CMOS if you want them to persist across system reboots.

  4. When booting from a hard drive, if romboot cannot locate Nk.bin, the problem may be that you do not have a valid MBR on the drive. Use fdisk /mbr to fix the problem.

See Also

Known Issues with the x86 ROM Boot Loader | x86 ROM Boot Loader

Last updated on Wednesday, April 13, 2005

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