No boot device usually means the first 512 bytes of the CF disk have been disturbed.

If you have the failed CF, try the following commands: (on Linux or Mac)

put the CF disk into a reader and do

    df

From the resulting output, try to figure out your device name. It will probably be the last one in the list:

    /dev/sda    (hard disk)
    /dev/sdb    (hard disk - raid clone of sda ??)
    /dev/sdc    (cdrom drive..)
    /dev/sdd

Using the CF disk name (/dev/sdd assumed below), give the following command:

    dd if=/dev/sdd bs=512 count=1 | od -c

You should see a bunch of lines - with each byte decoded as an ascii character and an octal number
Save this output and paste it into a document.

As I recall, the first octal number should be a 353 if you have a good boot segment.

-------

When you rewrite the CF disk, again check the boot block using the same command above. Save the output and paste it into your debug document and compare the first few lines.

If the first few lines are different, it might indicate that something whacked that segment. It could have been an errant log entry, a reconfig that went wrong, or just a glitch.

You would not notice that this data had been disturbed until the next reboot - which does seem to fit your symptoms.

If your system now is fixed, eyeball the original 512 char output to see if any of the ascii characters seem to be part of a log message or config line. This would give a clue as to what might have happened.

Hope this helps

Bob G

On Sep 9, 2010, at 12:28, Michel Servaes wrote:

On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 6:02 PM, Beat Siegenthaler <[email protected]> wrote:
 On 09.09.10 16:18, Michel Servaes wrote:
What could be the cause here ? Should I install an UPS... or should I
buy better CF-cards ?


As long You use the CF read-only I am pretty shure there is another
problem...

PC Engines ALIX.2 v0.99h
640 KB Base Memory
261120 KB Extended Memory

No boot device available, press Enter to continue.



I am using the "embedded" version on a 4GB Kingston CF card... (it's
not an industrial one...). But when using embedded - I guess I am
using read-only, no ?


For as long as the bios firmware, I guess 0.99h was the latest one...

This is the second time, and the second Alixboard that gave me this
after a power outage (in a very short time : last week I had another
one)...


Thank you already for the responses here...

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