On May 1, 2005, at 6:10 AM, James W. McKeand wrote:
>
>
> Someone a while back had boot problems with a multi-slot reader
> (x-in-one that does CF, SD/MMC, etc.) Could not find config.xml, IIRC.
> If you plan to boot from a USB reader use caution.

I've used 5 different USB readers on FreeBSD (and linux).  One of the 
things I've
noticed is that, with the ones with the LED that indicates 'access', a 
'dd' process will
finish (exit) a couple seconds before the LED stops flashing.

So, if you're quick, and yank the CF card after dd (or possibly 
physdiskwrite) exits,
its possible that the last several sectors won't be correctly written, 
and the filesystem
were config.xml lives will be unreadable.

This is especially annoying when you're pushing out 100 cards in an 
afternoon.

Anyway, I'll bet if you wait 5 seconds after the 'dd' exits, the 
problem goes away.

jim