Can not boot from flash using new Edge CF card

[J-MacSSCT]

I had a few CF cards taken from our training routers and thought I would save a few bucks by buying non-cisco cards.  I researched online and it seemed like a good idea.  For some reason, when I boot using the Edge CF card, it will not read the flash and goes straight into rommon.  I have booted from a good card, switched over to the Edge, the router acknowledges the new card.  I formatted it in the router using "format flash:".  I then pulled it out and loaded the IOS using my PC.  I put it back into the router, do a "show flash" and the file shows and is the same size and the original good file on the cisco CF card.  So both cards read in the router, both files show up using a "show" command and are the same size.  but when I boot, the Edge card will not read and I get rommon mode everytime.

I have tried it in other routers and I have tried three different Edge cards.  I could understand if the router did not read the card during a "show" command but it reads everything just fine, it just will not access the card during boot.  Is there some special way to format the card to allow for booting like the old floppy disks where you had to do a format c: /s ???

Thanks for your help

[Amit Aneja]

John,

Let's try the following:

1) Boot the router using Cisco flash card. Remove the Cisco card & insert edge.

2) Format the edge flash card from the router once again.

3) Using a TFTP, transfer the IOS into the edge flash again, let's not try loading IOS from PC.

4) See if the IOS is there & it can be read properly.

5) Set the boot variable & wr.

6)Reload

See if the above steps work. Else I guess you have to move to Cisco flash card, unless somebody has suggestions to fix it.

Regards,

Amit

[J-MacSSCT]

I'm confused by step 5 and maybe this is what I am missing.  What do you mean by "setting the boot variable & wr"?

Thanks for your reply

[J-MacSSCT]

By "Boot Variable" do you mean the "set boot flash bootflash:filename" command?  I can do this but it seems to already be set to boot from flash since it works fine from the cisco card and I only have an issue when I put the Edge card in.  Because of that, I am assuing the issue is with my card and not in the router settings.  I could be wrong and I frequently am 

[Amit Aneja]

Hi John,

Yes, I meant the same as you mentioned above. If there is just one file in the flash card, router would normally check that. I prefer setting the boot variable as some devices are coming up with their internal bootflash & they could boot using a flash card as well. Also, in case you have multiple images, then you should be setting boot variable. If you just have one, no need to set it.

So, i agree that the issue is with the card itself, you gotta invest more money

Regards,

Amit