5.1. System CF (System Compact Flashes)

5.1. System CF (System Compact Flashes)
	Chapter 5. Abilis Compact Flash

System CF are those CF where Abilis system is installed and that are suitable to boot Abilis. They must satisfy the size requisite >= 100 Mbytes and <= 16 GBytes.

While letter C: is always assigned to the boot disk, letter D: in certain cases may refer to a disk which is not suitable for system CF, in such a case the disk D: is moved to some other letter.

If letter D: is free and a CF suitable for system CF is connected via USB and it is initially mounted to a letter <> D: it is subsequently moved to letter D:.

It is important to note that the procedure at boot and at runtime are slightly different:

At boot all IDE/SATA disk and partitions are mounted first, and only much later the USB disks.
If a IDE/SATA D: is not suitable for system CF it is moved to E:, but if other IDE/SATA disks were present too they are all shifted by one letter (e.g. F:->G, E:->F:, D:->E:)
When it is time to USB disks they are managed individually, so any required letter change occurs individually.
At runtime it is not possible to add new IDE/SATA disks, but it is possible to create partitions on a hard disk.
When partition is added, more precisely we split an existent partition, the new partition is added starting from some late letter (typically R: or Q:) but after system is rebooted it will be mounted with a letter that is next to the split partition. If for example we split partition E: we will get E: and may be R::, but after reboot they will be E: and F:, and if other IDE/SATA disks are present they will shift to G:, H:, etc...
It is always recommended to reboot Abilis after partition split.
USB disks can be added and removed runtime, they are handled individually like at boot.

All these disks activities are logged in system log, here are some examples:

Abilis with 2 IDE/SATA CF + 1 IDE/SATA HD

02/11/2018 13:43:41 [00103] -------------------- NEW RUN --------------------
..
02/11/2018 13:43:41 [00621] I: Disk D: (4D49-668F) suitable for MIRROR/SAFE CF
...
02/11/2018 13:43:53 [00055] SYSTEM STARTED   


[13:51:24] ABILIS_CPX:sys disk info

Logical drive(s) information:

Drv Disk   FS       Label           Serial      Used space      Total space
    Interface       Cluster size                Free space      Bootable
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
C:  HD-12  FAT32    NEW VOLUME      9428-6E67   359 MiB         478 MiB
    AHCI            4,096 bytes                 118 MiB         YES
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
D:  HD-13  FAT16                    4D49-668F   141 MiB         494 MiB
    AHCI            8,192 bytes                 353 MiB         YES
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
E:  HD-14  FAT32                    4D62-6E6A   448 KiB         715317 MiB
    AHCI            65,536 bytes                715317 MiB      YES
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[13:52:29] ABILIS_CPX:

Abilis with 1 IDE/SATA CF + 1 IDE/SATA HD

02/11/2018 13:55:48 [00103] -------------------- NEW RUN --------------------
...
02/11/2018 13:55:48 [00624] I: Disk D: (4D62-6E6A) not suitable for MIRROR/SAFE CF, D: -> E:
...
02/11/2018 13:56:00 [00055] SYSTEM STARTED          


[13:56:20] ABILIS_CPX:sys disk info

Logical drive(s) information:

Drv Disk   FS       Label           Serial      Used space      Total space
    Interface       Cluster size                Free space      Bootable
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
C:  HD-12  FAT32    NEW VOLUME      9428-6E67   359 MiB         478 MiB
    AHCI            4,096 bytes                 118 MiB         YES
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
E:  HD-14  FAT32                    4D62-6E6A   448 KiB         715317 MiB
    AHCI            65,536 bytes                715317 MiB      YES
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[13:56:53] ABILIS_CPX:

Abilis with 1 IDE/SATA CF + 1 IDE/SATA HD + 1 USB CF in a two slots card reader

02/11/2018 13:58:57 [00103] -------------------- NEW RUN --------------------
...
02/11/2018 13:58:57 [00624] I: Disk D: (4D62-6E6A) not suitable for MIRROR/SAFE CF, D: -> E:
...
02/11/2018 13:59:05 [00615] I: Disk I: (4D49-8C41) suitable for MIRROR CF, I: -> D:
...
02/11/2018 13:59:09 [00055] SYSTEM STARTED            


[13:59:15] ABILIS_CPX:sys disk info

Logical drive(s) information:

Drv Disk   FS       Label           Serial      Used space      Total space
    Interface       Cluster size                Free space      Bootable
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
C:  HD-12  FAT32    NEW VOLUME      9428-6E67   359 MiB         478 MiB
    AHCI            4,096 bytes                 118 MiB         YES
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
D:  HD-20  FAT32                    4D49-8C41   24 MiB          963 MiB
    USB             2,048 bytes                 939 MiB         YES
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
E:  HD-14  FAT32                    4D62-6E6A   448 KiB         715317 MiB
    AHCI            65,536 bytes                715317 MiB      YES
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
J:         drive not ready [-29]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[14:00:01] ABILIS_CPX: