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CHDK installation guide for SX100 (using XP, USB card reader)

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Here is a set of step-by-step instructions to install CHDK on the SX100 for SDHC cards > 4GB which need multi-partitioning. If you are using a card <= 4GB use Card Tricks which can format the whole card as FAT16 and make it bootable (steps 1 through 7 below) with just a few clicks. The limitation with this camera (so far; hopefully the issue will be solved) is that it will only load CHDK from a FAT16 partition, and it will only store the photos on that same partition. FAT16 partitions can at most be 4GB, so for SD cards bigger than that you will only be able to use the first 4GB with CHDK. Here's how I made it work on a 4GB FAT16 partition using WinXP, a USB card reader and an 8GB Transcend SDHC card:

1) Download aefdisk32 and remember to where you unzip aefdisk32.exe (to make things easy you can put it in a folder that is searched for executables by default, e.g. C:\WINDOWS).

2) Start a command prompt (Start -> Run..., then enter "cmd"). If you put aefdisk32.exe in a folder that Windows doesn't search by default, you will have to navigate to that folder to run aefdisk32 (cd "C:\Full Path\To Folder")

3) Run the command: aefdisk32 X /show  (X=1,2,3,...)
Each number corresponds to a physical drive, and the command will show the partitioning info for that drive. The purpose is to check which number corresponds to the SD card you are looking to partition/format. Make 1000% sure that you identify the right drive here so you don't end up messing with your hard drive by accident!

4) Run the command: aefdisk32 X /delall /nolimit /pri:4096:6 /pri:0:c /activate:1
X is the number corresponding to your SD card as identified above. This will delete everything including the partition table on your SD card, make a 4GB FAT16 partition, make what's left on the card a FAT32 partition (that neither your camera or computer will see) and activate the FAT16 partition. The /nolimit switch is necessary when trying to make a FAT16 partition above 2GB (max 4GB). For a 2GB partition, substitute 2048 for 4096 (and so on).

5) Find out what drive letter the SD card has been assigned by your computer. In the command prompt, if you run "dir Y:", substituting possible drive letters for Y, I believe it will show a message about the drive having unrecognizable format once you hit the right drive.

6) Run the command: format Y: /FS:FAT     (with Y being the drive letter found above)
It will warn about non-default allocation unit size if the FAT16 partition you created is bigger than 2GB. In that case, confirm that this is what you want to do.

7) Make the SD card bootable. I used bootable.exe for this. Unzip, put the file bootable.exe in a folder so you can run it from the command prompt, then simply run: bootable.exe Y:
Substitute the drive letter of your SD card for Y.

8 ) Copy DISKBOOT.BIN from your downloaded/unzipped CHDK package to the SD card.

9) Lock the SD card, put it in your camera, switch camera on. CHDK should be loading on startup.

WARNING: Later the same day my SDHC card died on me (see this post). According to other CHDK users, the process of partitioning, formatting and making the card bootable as in above guidelines shouldn't be able to harm the card, but obviously there's no guarantee that the same couldn't happen to you. In case you follow above instructions and end up with a dead card too, please post your experience.

I'm hoping multipartition will become possible so that CHDK can boot from a tiny FAT16 partition (e.g. substitute 16 for 4096 in step 4 above for a 16MB partition), and then the camera will store (and your computer will see) all the photos on the big FAT32 partition, allowing > 4GB. IF that becomes an option, then you will need to change the partition table info for the small FAT16 partition (without changing the partition itself!). This can be done with Beeblebrox (the NT/2000 version works on XP). Run it, choose your SD card from the Disk Information drop-down menu, and in the "Type" column the first entry will then be 06. Change it to 00, save changes and close Beeblebrox. Job done! Whenever you want to add something to CHDK you will have to run Beeblebrox again, change the "Type" entry for the first partition on the SD card back to 06, unplug and plug back in the card reader and now your computer will see the small FAT16 partition instead, allowing you to update CHDK. When done, switch the type back to 00 again and you are good to go.

I am a newbie, so above description may well have errors/flaws, but hopefully it is sufficiently good to help some other newbies through. Thanks to shkin for this post with instructions that made this process a heck of a lot easier to me (and from which I have obviously copied quite a bit here!).
« Last Edit: 13 / August / 2008, 22:27:13 by flyvholm »
SX100, S3

Re: CHDK installation guide for SX100 (using XP, USB card reader)
« Reply #1 on: 11 / August / 2008, 23:25:28 »
Did not work for me. :(

1) Download aefdisk32 and remember to where you unzip aefdisk32.exe (to make things easy you can put it in a folder that is searched for executables by default, e.g. C:\WINDOWS).

Done

2) Start a command prompt (Start -> Run..., then enter "cmd"). If you put aefdisk32.exe in a folder that Windows doesn't search by default, you will have to navigate to that folder to run aefdisk32 (cd "C:\Full Path\To Folder")

Done

3) Run the command: aefdisk32 X /show  (X=1,2,3,...)
Each number corresponds to a physical drive, and the command will show the partitioning info for that drive. The purpose is to check which number corresponds to the SD card you are looking to partition/format. Make 1000% sure that you identify the right drive here so you don't end up messing with your hard drive by accident!


Done

4) Run the command: aefdisk32 X /delall /nolimit /pri:4096:6 /pri:0:c /activate:1
X is the number corresponding to your SD card as identified above. This will delete everything including the partition table on your SD card, make a 4GB FAT16 partition, make what's left on the card a FAT32 partition (that neither your camera or computer will see) and activate the FAT16 partition. The /nolimit switch is necessary when trying to make a FAT16 partition above 2GB (max 4GB). For a 2GB partition, substitute 2048 for 4096 (and so on).


Received the following message:

Deleting all partitions... done
Creating primary partition... Specified partition is too large


My card is a [Sandisk] 4 GB card but it has a 3834 MB actual usable size. Not sure if this makes a difference.

5) Find out what drive letter the SD card has been assigned by your computer. In the command prompt, if you run "dir Y:", substituting possible drive letters for Y, I believe it will show a message about the drive having unrecognizable format once you hit the right drive.

Did not get this message... received message showing volume name and serial number followed by the directory with the text "File Not Found".

6) Run the command: format Y: /FS:FAT     (with Y being the drive letter found above)
It will warn about non-default allocation unit size if the FAT16 partition you created is bigger than 2GB. In that case, confirm that this is what you want to do.


No message, did/could not confirm, just received new prompt...

7) Make the SD card bootable. I used bootable.exe for this. Unzip, put the file bootable.exe in a folder so you can run it from the command prompt, then simply run: bootable.exe Y:
Substitute the drive letter of your SD card for Y.


Done... received "Are you sure?", said "Y", received "probably card is not FAT12/FAT16 formatted; do you wish to continue?", said "Y", received "done"

8 ) Copy DISKBOOT.BIN from your downloaded/unzipped CHDK package to the SD card.

Done

9) Lock the SD card, put it in your camera, switch camera on. CHDK should be loading on startup.

Nothing. Camera behaved as though I had done nothing.

Any advice? :)

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Offline fe50

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    • fe50
Re: CHDK installation guide for SX100 (using XP, USB card reader)
« Reply #2 on: 12 / August / 2008, 03:01:26 »
Hi becker,
you are using a 4GB SD card ? - In this case you don't need this procedure at all, it's for cards > 4GB with multi partition CHDK support...up to 4GB you can use your card with a single FAT16 formatted partition.

Use wim's great cardtricks tool: select your card reader, click "Format as FAT", then click "Make bootable", copy your CHDK files & you're ready to go !

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Offline whim

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Re: CHDK installation guide for SX100 (using XP, USB card reader)
« Reply #3 on: 12 / August / 2008, 03:21:35 »
Quote
4) Run the command: aefdisk32 X /delall /nolimit /pri:4096:6 /pri:0:c /activate:1

Well... Of course this doesn't work if your card only has 3834 MB, 4096 > 3834.

Try as a test: aefdisk32 X /delall /nolimit /pri:2048:6 /pri:0:c /activate:1 and it should work.

Explanation: the "/pri:2048:6 /pri:0:c" part means:

'first make a (primary) partition with 2048 MB and type 6, then use the rest
for a second (primary) partition and give it type c'

you should then end up with one 2048 and one (3834-2048) = 1786 MB partition.

in short: in the place in your original (quoted) command where it says '4096' you
should never put a value larger than the amount available on yor card.



That said, why do you need multi-partition anyway on this card ?  3834 MB can easily be
FAT16 formatted as in step 6 or with Card Tricks - a small utility to help manage SD cards [currently v. 1.36]

wim

edit: fe50 was faster...posting anyway because you might want to know in case you use larger cards,
« Last Edit: 12 / August / 2008, 03:23:13 by whim »


Re: CHDK installation guide for SX100 (using XP, USB card reader)
« Reply #4 on: 13 / August / 2008, 22:26:42 »
I have a fair share of the fault for that mistake. The post appeared as a guide for all SX100/CHDK newbies to follow, but it is actually of rather limited use for SX100 owners for now. As long as the SX100 can only write to the bootable FAT16 partition, people are better off using <=4GB cards, and then using Card Tricks is a much better option. I edited the post to reflect this and hope it won't be confusing more users.
SX100, S3

 

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