For Windows you will be downloading physdiskwrite from the m0n0wall web site. This is a small Windows NT/2000/XP command line tool that makes it possible to write disk images onto raw disks, like CF cards. It currently has a few rough edges, most notably in the selection of the device to be written – you have to decide which device is the right one by looking at the C/H/S values (though if the CF card was the last device to be connected to the system, it usually shows up as the last one in the list).

Note that the C/H/S values may be incorrect for CF cards – looks like this is a bug in Windows. There is some protection against accidentally overwriting your hard disk, but then again, I CAN'T TAKE ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR LOST DATA – YOU USE THIS PROGRAM ON YOUR OWN RISK.

Manuel Kasper's (author of m0n0wall) physdiskwrite should be used on Windows to write the CF card. Download it from the m0n0wall web site's physdiskwrite page.

Save physdiskwrite.exe and the downloaded m0n0wall image in the same directory on your hard drive, then open a Windows Command Prompt (click Start, Run, type in cmd and click OK).

Plug in your CF card reader/writer and insert your CF card. If you are connecting your hard drive you can either connect it directly to your computer or through a fire wire or USB adaptor for external drives.

'cd' into the directory containing physdiskwrite and the m0n0wall image and run the following:

physdiskwrite generic-pc-xxx.img

Replacing generic-pc-xxx.img with the name of the generic-pc image you downloaded.

You will see output similar to the following:

physdiskwrite v0.5 by Manuel Kasper <mk@neon1.net>

Searching for physical drives...

Information for \\.\PhysicalDrive0:
   Windows:       cyl: 14593
                  tpc: 255
                  spt: 63
   C/H/S:         16383/16/63
   Model:         ST3120026A
   Serial number: 3JT1V2FS
   Firmware rev.: 3.06

Information for \\.\PhysicalDrive1:
   Windows:       cyl: 1
                  tpc: 255
                  spt: 63

You will see all the hard drives in your system listed, as well as the compact flash card. Since we did not run physdiskwrite -u, physdiskwrite will refuse to write to any drive over 2 GB. This is a protection so you don't accidentally overwrite your hard drive.

The procedures to image a CompactFlash card depend upon the type of adapter you are using. The CF card will either appear as a SCSI or IDE hard drive.

Run the command atacontrol list. You will get output similar to the following:

su-3.00# atacontrol list
ATA channel 0:
Master: ad0 <WDC WD200EB-75CSF0/04.01B04> ATA/ATAPI revision 5
Slave: ad1 <WDC WD800AB-22CBA0/03.06A03> ATA/ATAPI revision 5
ATA channel 1:
Master: acd0 <_NEC CD-RW NR-7800A/10DA> ATA/ATAPI revision 0
Slave: no device present
            

Then run the command camcontrol devlist. You will see output similar to the following:

su-2.05b# camcontrol devlist
<ADAPTEC RAID-5 320R> at scbus2 target 0 lun 0 (pass0,da0)
<SEAGATE ST39204LC 0005> at scbus2 target 3 lun 0 (pass1,da1)
<ESG-SHV SCA HSBP M10 0.05> at scbus2 target 6 lun 0 (pass2)                
            

You will find your CF card somewhere in the above output. Make note of its device name (adX or daX).

Run the following command, replacing adX with your CF device as determined above, and generic-pc-xxx.img with the name of the m0n0wall image you downloaded.

gzcat generic-pc-xxx.img | dd of=/dev/adX bs=16k

Ignore the warning about trailing garbage - it's because of the digital signature.

gunzip -c generic-pc-xx-xxx.img | dd of=/dev/hdX bs=16k

where X = the IDE device name of your CF card (check with hdparm -i /dev/hdX) - some adapters, particularly USB, may show up under SCSI emulation as /dev/sdX.

Ignore the warning about trailing garbage - it's because of the digital signature.