Problem with booting and flashing efusA9X boards

  • Dear Support Team,


    I have two efusA9X boards which are not working as expected. These boards are from a series that came from our supplier, so they should be on factory settings. The problem is they won't boot Windows CE system because BINFS partition cannot be detected. Moreover, EBoot command prompt does not seem to receive any command. Both boards behave the same way.


    Here is the output from DCUTermi when these boards are inserted in Starterkit:


    Microsoft Windows CE Bootloader Common Library Version 1.2 Built Jul 3 2018 11:25:13

    Microsoft Windows CE Bootloader for efusA9X Built Jul 9 2018

    Portions copyright (c) 2016 F&S Elektronik Systeme GmbH

    Boot Loader, Version 1.4

    NBoot, Version VN38

    HW rev. 1.30


    System ready!

    Preparing for download...

    Press >S< to step into monitor...

    AUTO BOOT enabled

    HW-Watchdog: ON

    ERROR: ReadKernelRegionFromNandFlash: Failed to open existing BINFS partition.

    Error reading Kernel from Flash

    Disable AUTO BOOT

    Press >S< to step into monitor...

    HW-Watchdog: DELAYED


    efusA9X - WindowsCE Bootloader


    :> ????<LF>

    mf<LF>


    Rebooting while holding 's' or 'S' gives this same output, so I cannot step into NBoot.


    Can you please advise how to proceed from here?


    I am waiting to get few other samples from this series, just to check if the complete series has the same issue.


    Thanks in advance.


    Best regards,


    Vladimir Obradovic

  • Hello Vladimir Obradovic,


    >>Can you please advise how to proceed from here?

    << Hm, to step into the bootloaders should have nothing to do with state of BINFS! So I wonder if PC.TX<->efus.RX line is ok? Can you veryfy this with any other (older) card?


    >> Can you please advise how to proceed from here?

    << Can you please provide me the serial numbers. I worst case you have to send the boards as RMA via your supplier.

    F&S Elektronik Systeme GmbH
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    Da dies ein internationales Forum ist, bitten wir darum, Beiträge möglichst in Englisch zu verfassen.

  • Hello,


    You were right, my serial to USB adapter seemed to be the cause why efus did not receive characters I typed in DCUTermi. I have managed to recover it and to flash the image. Thanks for the hint.


    I wonder why some default OS was missing on these boards. Serial numbers (read from the Windows Embedded sticker) are:


    02219-095-343-391

    02219-095-343-395


    I will check some more samples from the same series in next few days.


    Best regards,


    Vladimir Obradovic

  • Hello Vladimir Obradovic


    >> Sorry for my ignorance.

    << No problem, to many stichers with numbers.


    >> 000551111A9B, ...

    << Sorry for inconvenience. Indeed I saw from the test protocol that these four boards form position one in the correponding shipping list were deliverd without kernel -sorry. We will check how this could happen to prevent such an issue in future.

    Nevertheless these boards were tested successfully and there seems to be no issues with the HW.

    F&S Elektronik Systeme GmbH
    As this is an international forum, please try to post in English.
    Da dies ein internationales Forum ist, bitten wir darum, Beiträge möglichst in Englisch zu verfassen.

  • Sorry again,


    everthing seems to be correct.

    We deliver only efus SKITs with preinstalled kernel. When you order efus only, for series production, only NBoot and EBoot are preinstalld.

    Refer product overview for efus on our web page.

    F&S Elektronik Systeme GmbH
    As this is an international forum, please try to post in English.
    Da dies ein internationales Forum ist, bitten wir darum, Beiträge möglichst in Englisch zu verfassen.

  • Hello Support Team,


    Ok, this explains why kernel was missing on our boards. But this also creates an obstacle in production process for us. I thought that preinstalled kernel is always present on efus boards, so we used AutoStart.exe to install custom defined kernel from SD card automatically, without need for user intervention. This is not possible when preinstalled kernel is not available.


    Can you please give us a hint how to install initial kernel in a most efficient way? For those two boards, I have used StarterKit and NetDcuUsbLoader, but this process hardly can be automated and demands quite a lot of user intervention.


    Best regards,


    Vladimir

  • Hello Vladimir Obradovic


    there are two options.


    A) You can order the boards with your custom configuration. But this depends on the quantity you purchase in one batch and may increase the costs per board. For details your supplier may contact our sales office with details about the required configuration.


    B) You can call NetDCUUSBLoader with command line as we do it in our production line:

    - auto -> automatic download if connected

    c # pseudo command line template:

    USBLoaderProcProcess.StartInfo.Arguments = "-auto" + " " + <path to kernel- orNBI file>;


    Hope this helps.


    F&S Elektronik Systeme GmbH
    As this is an international forum, please try to post in English.
    Da dies ein internationales Forum ist, bitten wir darum, Beiträge möglichst in Englisch zu verfassen.

  • Hello Support Team,


    Is it an option for you to share with us the protocol which NetDCUUSBLoader uses to download image to ufus board? We would then implement this protocol on our automated production environment which runs on FreeRTOS.


    Best regards,


    Vladimir Obradovic

  • Hello,


    out sales manager will contact you for sign a NDA.

    Afterwards i will send you the source code so that you can extract what you need.

    F&S Elektronik Systeme GmbH
    As this is an international forum, please try to post in English.
    Da dies ein internationales Forum ist, bitten wir darum, Beiträge möglichst in Englisch zu verfassen.

  • We will send the NDA ASAP.


    KU

    F&S Elektronik Systeme GmbH
    As this is an international forum, please try to post in English.
    Da dies ein internationales Forum ist, bitten wir darum, Beiträge möglichst in Englisch zu verfassen.

  • Dear support Team,


    I also was looking for a possibility to run a USB from Start. We are using the eFus as well. Altough the Kernel is installed I can't find the above mentioned autostart.exe.

  • Hello,


    "autostart.exe" is a part of a tool we sell, refer Update-Tool. You will also find the docs there.


    Another option is to write your own "autostart.exe".

    F&S Elektronik Systeme GmbH
    As this is an international forum, please try to post in English.
    Da dies ein internationales Forum ist, bitten wir darum, Beiträge möglichst in Englisch zu verfassen.

  • Ok, if you need an update for WEC7/2013 contact our sales office. Assume updates are for free.

    F&S Elektronik Systeme GmbH
    As this is an international forum, please try to post in English.
    Da dies ein internationales Forum ist, bitten wir darum, Beiträge möglichst in Englisch zu verfassen.