SDActive is a simple application whose purpose is to show the content of the four entries of the partition of a SCSIFS drive in human readable form, and to permit the "Active" flag of the first partition to be swapped between Active and Inactive. This is important when preparing a micro SD card for a BeagleBoard xM, for example, because the boot loader will not boot from an inactive partition.
This application is copyright © 2011 Dave Higton.
This program is free software; the most up to date version is available from my web site. Any individual or company is welcome to take a copy from my web site for his/her/its own use, directly to flash or re-flash memory cards. Please do not give copies to anyone; instead refer them to my web site. This is simply an attempt to persuade people to get the most up to date version rather than proliferate potentially out of date versions.
For the same reason, publishing or making this software available from other repositories is expressly forbidden. Anyone is welcome to link to my web site instead - but please link to the home page, because I reserve the right to reorganise lower level pages, which could invalidate published links to lower levels.
In the event that my web page becomes permanently unavailable, the above restrictions shall no longer apply.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Any individual or company may alter the !Boot, !Help, !Run, !Sprites22, Help, and RunImage files in order to fix bugs or compatibility issues, for their own use only. If you do need to do that, please tell me, because it sounds like a bug I need to fix, or a feature I'd like to add, for everybody's benefit.
You may contact the author:
by e-mail as davehigton@dsl.pipex.com, or
by snail-mail at 76 Glenfield Crescent, Southampton, Hants, SO18 4RF, United Kingdom.
SDActive is a simple application whose purpose is to show the content of the four entries of the partition of a SCSIFS drive in human readable form, and to permit the "Active" flag of the first partition to be swapped between Active and Inactive.
Copy the !SDActive application into a convenient location. Since the application, if misused, has the ability to prevent the BeagleBoard from booting, I recommend that you DO NOT put it in the $.Apps directory. If you have a directory for applications such as disc formatting, that would be a good candidate location for SDActive.
Double click the !SDActive application, which opens up a TaskWindow with the prompt "Device to read (0..7 or B)?" Input the number of the SCSIFS drive you want to look at, or B for the built-in interface, followed by the "Enter" key.
You will now see a hex dump of the master boot record of the card in the reader-writer - or "The disc drive is empty at line 210" if you haven't got a card reader/writer there or got a card in it.
Assuming you chose a drive with a card, there will be some lines detailing the parameters of the four primary partitions. The last line will say either " Partition 0 is active; change (Y/n)?" or "Partition 0 is inactive; change (Y/n)?" If you answer "Y" or "y", the active/inactive state will be swapped.
That's all there is to it.
If you discover a bug, or you would like to suggest an improvement, please contact me, preferably by e-mail at davehigton@dsl.pipex.com and I'll do my best to help. You may also wish to join in the fora at http://www.riscosopen.org/forum/, as this seems to be where most BeagleBoard help is offered. Lastly, the comp.sys.acorn.apps newsgroup may also be able to offer help. Please try me first; I don't usually bite! - but DO READ THE MANUAL (this document) FIRST.
You can download SDActive here.
0.01 2011 November 12 First issue
0.02 2011 November 21 Works on built-in interface too
Page last updated 2011 November 21