By Frank Liu
QNX 6.2.1 setup.exe removed the capability of installation into a Windows FAT partition. This article tries to provide a manual way to have QNX installed under FAT partition, with or without burning a CD.
Prerequisite:
This article talks about installing QNX 6 under FAT, so you will need at least one FAT partition where you can put QNX. If your primary Windows partition is NTFS, you will need to create another partition using FAT. In the following text, we just call the chosen FAT drive X:
Step 1: Getting the ISO
Go to the download section and grab a copy of the ISO file from one of the mirrors. If you are going to burn a CD out of the ISO file, go ahead and do so, then skip to Step 2b.
Step 2a: Install without burning the disc.
Save the ISO as X:\qnx621nc.iso and mount it under Windows. You
will need to download and install Fantom CD to mount ISO under Windows. Fantom is a great piece of software (with a free trial version) that lets you trick windows into thinking the ISO is actually in a real CDROM drive. Fantom will give you a virtual drive, say E:, to access the ISO CD image.
If autorun is on, QNX setup will start autmatically, otherwise just run E:\setup.exe manually.Now you can create a boot floppy from the GUI.
Step 2b: Install from a CDROM
Insert the CD and let's assume your CDROM drive is E: If autorun is on, QNX setup will start autmatically, otherwise just run E:\setup.exe manually. Now you can create a boot floppy from the GUI.
Step 3: Install the QNX Files and Create the work space
Copy all files from E:\boot\fs\*.* to X:\Program Files\qnx\boot\fs\ directory (you have to use this path).
Next, use "dinitw32.exe" (found in http://mama.indstate.edu/users/liug/qnx-fat-tools.zip ) to create your work space. This is where you can assign disk space to QNX. Due to the limitation of FAT, the largest size you can create is 2000MBytes. You can also create swap size to be used by the gcc toolsets under QNX if you
think your real memory is not enough.
example 1: create a 2G work space with 128M swap.
dinitw32 X:\Progra~1\qnx\boot\fs\root.qfs 2000 128
example 2: create a 1G work space with no swap.
dinitw32 X:\Progra~1\qnx\boot\fs\root.qfs 1000
Step 4: Boot from Floppy and Finish the installation
Reboot the system and boot up from floppy, you will go through the normal video configuration, and finally when you login, the "installer" will come up.
If you are using the CD, make sure it is in the drive and the installer should guide you to finish the install.
If you are using ISO, the installer will fail to find the CD and give you a warning "Ready to Resume Install [Exit, Retry]", you will need to open up a "terminal" and mount the ISO:
mount -t cd /fs/hd0-dos/qnx621nc.iso /fs/cd0
and then click "Retry". This is let you "upgrade" your installer. Once this is done, it will prompt you to "insert a repostory CD". "Exit" the installer at this point, and restart it by clicking the "Installer" on the shelf. Once the installer is up, click File and select "Open Repository", put /fs/cd0/rep621" as Location. Now you should be able to select and install QNX Momentics NC for Neutrino (x86).
Step 5: Final words
Now that you have everything ready, you might wonder if it is possible to boot without floppy.
Step 5a: Using config.sys
If you are using Windows 9X, you will be able to load QNX from your config.sys using "loadqnx.sys" from the http://mama.indstate.edu/users/liug/qnx-fat-tools.zip
the following is an example C:\config.sys file
[menu] menuitem=WIN, Windows menudefault=WIN,30 menuitem=QNXDMA, QNX Realtime Platform menuitem=QNX, QNX Realtime Platform (DMA Disabled) menucolor=7,0 [QNX] DEVICE=C:\PROGRA~1\QNX\boot\bin\loadqnx.sys C:\PROGRA~1\QNX\boot\fs\qnxbase.ifs [QNXDMA] DEVICE=C:\PROGRA~1\QNX\boot\bin\loadqnx.sys C:\PROGRA~1\QNX\boot\fs\qnxbas~1.ifs [WIN] [COMMON]
Step 5b: Using GRUB
Another more flexible way is to use grub. Wait for the upcoming article on QNX and grub.