3 replies to this topic

[SuperTechie]

I just purchased an ISOStick from Amazon during the initial 100 run. I bought a new Sandisk Ultra 32GB microSDHC card to go along with it (class 10).

The ISOStick is not seen at POST on the 2 Dell Optiplex 390s I tried nor the Precision 380. These work fine with normal USB sticks I have prepped with WinPE (Kingston DT160).

I created the config folder, dumped isosel.bin in config folder along with iso_filename.txt. I can see the iso I specified loaded in Windows as a virtual drive, so part of it is working and I can see the device as a normal flash drive in Windows.

Also, I tried the firmware loader from Windows 7 (two different PCs) and Windows 8 and it does not find my ISOStick. I am doing a "Run-as Administrator" on it from both. Comes back "Service code: Unknown".

Any ideas?

[elegantinvention]

For the firmware updater, you have to press the button on the bottom of the isostick while it is plugged in for it to be detected, per the instructions here: http://isostick.com/...e-update-guide/
You may have to press Get Info after doing that for the updater to pull down the service code.
EDIT: Also, you shouldn't have to run as Administrator as far as I know, but it certainly won't hurt

As to the Optiplex 390, an entry in the Tested Hardware list suggests the Optiplex 390 BIOS doesn't recognize the isostick. In our testing, it seems Dell BIOSes like to do things different from everyone else, and this has caused significant compatibility issues. Unfortunately for us, Dell is also very common in business / enterprise!
It is likely that whatever causes the issue on the Optiplex 390 is the same for the Precision 380.

I will see what I can do to fix this. If necessary, would you be willing to run install test firmware on your isostick to gather debug information with these machines?

Lastly, do you happen to have any USB CDROMs available to try? Some BIOSes simply do not recognize USB CDROMs (or, they will only see one CDROM, so you must disable/remove the internal one -- this is particularly common in HP laptops). Another possibility is that these BIOSes don't recognize devices with multiple drives. I can produce test firmware for that case, so that with the switch in read-only mode, only the CDROM shows up, but in read/write mode both flash and CDROM show up (per this thread).

[SuperTechie]

Thanks for the quick response! The firmware issue was me not RTFM. I missed the part about hitting the reset button (oops). It's at the latest Rev of 1617.

I would be willing to test with debug firmware for the Dells. I just tried a Rosewill external USB burner and the BIOS saw it just fine and booted from it on the Optiplex 390.

Edited by SuperTechie, 26 October 2012 - 07:22 PM.

[elegantinvention]

Awesome, thanks for trying the external burner.
It's almost certainly either a bug in isostick firmware or the fact that isostick shows up as 2 drives, then.
I'll reply here when I've got some test firmware to show up as just a CDROM when it's in read-only mode, and it'll produce a crashdump and log files in case it's a firmware bug.