PCMCIA Filesystem Compatibility Matrix and Filesystem Information

Document ID: 6145

Introduction

This document explains the PCMCIA Filesystem Compatibility Matrix, describes the different filesystems that are available, and explains how to work on those filesystems.

The matrix shows filesystem compatibilities for PCMCIA Flash cards between various platforms. This can be useful when copying a software image on the PCMCIA Flash card of a router or switch (source) which is to be used for another router or switch (target) of a different platform.

The tables below describe which filesystems the various Cisco hardware platforms belong to. Platforms listed under the same filesystem class share the same filesystem structure.

Note: In order to boot a router or a switch from a Cisco IOS® software file located on a PCMCIA Flash card, the Flash card must have been formatted in the target platform. Using a PCMCIA card formatted in the source platform may work in some cases; however, there are a number of situations where the bootstrap version of the target router does not support the formatted card, even if the filesystems are compatible. Therefore, there is no guarantee that the information shown on this page works in all situations.

Before You Begin

Conventions

For more information on document conventions, see the Cisco Technical Tips Conventions.

Prerequisites

There are no specific prerequisites for this document.

Components Used

This document is not restricted to specific software and hardware versions.

The information presented in this document was created from devices in a specific lab environment. All of the devices used in this document started with a cleared (default) configuration. If you are working in a live network, ensure that you understand the potential impact of any command before using it.

PCMCIA Filesystem Compatibility Matrix

¹ The 1600 Series Router has a single PC Card that contains Flash memory. The 1601-1604 run from Flash. If you remove the PC Card when the router is running, the router halts. The 1601R-1605R runs from RAM. If you remove the PC Card, the router does not load the Cisco IOS software image during the next bootup. In the 1600 series, you can't delete the running image file or any other file unless it is in a different partition.

² The 3600 traditionally uses a class B filesystem, but with the addition of crashinfo file support in Cisco IOS Software Version 12.2(4)T, the 3600 needs the ability to delete individual files. Consequently, the 3600 Series Router with Cisco IOS Software Version 12.2T and later utilizes commands from class B filesystems as well as commands from class C filesystems. In order to activate the class C filesystem commands on the 3600 with Cisco IOS SoftwareRrelease 12.2T, you first need to use the erase command to completely remove all files from the Flash filesystem. Then, when the Flash is empty, run the squeeze command against it to create a squeeze log. At this point, the 3600 Flash system uses the delete and squeeze commands like a class C filesystem.

Working with the PCMCIA Filesystem

Flash disks are Flash memory-based devices that conform to the PC Card (formerly PCMCIA) standard, and that present an AT Attachment (ATA) interface to the system. This interface complies with the ANSI ATA Interface Document X3T13.1153 D Rev. 9 specification.

The Flash disk is more flexible than linear Flash memory because the Flash disk has controller circuitry that allows it to emulate a hard disk and that automatically maps out bad blocks and performs automatic block erasure. Further, the Flash disk provides the capability to allocate noncontiguous sectors, which eliminates the need for the squeeze command (previously required with linear Flash memory cards).

Unlike Flash memory modules installed directly on the mainboard of the router, multiple PCMCIA Flash devices do not coalesce into one contiguous block of memory. It is therefore important to note that when loading large files into PCMCIA Flash, such files cannot span across more than one device.

The Flash Disk provides increased Flash-based memory space - 48 to 128 MB - for storage of system configuration files, Cisco IOS software images, and other types of system-related files.

Flash memory ATA disks and Flash memory cards use similar commands. The primary syntax change is that disk0: or disk1: refers to Flash memory ATA disks, while slot0: or slot1: refers to Flash memory cards. Generally, use the syntax slot0: for Flash memory cards less than 20 MB, and use disk0: for Flash disk greater than 20 MB. Keep in mind that there are 32 MB linear PCMCIA Flash cards where you use slot0:

To see which Flash cards are used in your router, use the show version command and look at the bottom portion of the output.

  7200# show version
  IOS (tm) 7200 Software (C7200-JS-M), Version 12.0(22), RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)
  Copyright (c) 1986-2002 by cisco Systems, Inc.
  Compiled Mon 01-Apr-02 19:44 by srani
  Image text-base: 0x60008900, data-base: 0x610E0000
  ROM: System Bootstrap, Version 12.1(20000914:181332) [bwhatley-npe200 102],
  DEVELOPMENT SOFTWARE
  BOOTFLASH: 7200 Software (C7200-BOOT-M), Version 12.0(5), RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)
  cisco 7206 (NPE150) processor with 43008K/6144K bytes of memory.
  R4700 processor, Implementation 33, Revision 1.0 (512KB Level 2 Cache)
  Last reset from power-on
  Bridging software.
  X.25 software, Version 3.0.0.
  SuperLAT software (copyright 1990 by Meridian Technology Corp).
  TN3270 Emulation software.
  1 FastEthernet/IEEE 802.3 interface(s)
  125K bytes of non-volatile configuration memory.
  1024K bytes of packet SRAM memory.
  46976K bytes of ATA PCMCIA card at slot 0 (Sector size 512 bytes).

  !-- This indicates an ATA PCMCIA flash disk

  20480K bytes of Flash PCMCIA card at slot 1 (Sector size 128K).

  !-- This indicates a Linear PCMCIA flash card

  4096K bytes of Flash internal SIMM (Sector size 256K).

Configuration register is 0x2102

Class A Filesystem

The Filesystem Class A table above describes which filesystems the various Cisco hardware platforms belong to. Platforms listed under the same filesystem class share the same filesystem structure. The methods used for erasing, deleting, and recovering files depend on the class of the filesystem. Class A filesystems support the following file management commands:

• delete - "Marks" files as deleted, but the files still occupy space in Flash memory. Use the undelete command to recover these files later.


• squeeze - Permanently removes all of the files marked "deleted" or "error" from the specified Flash memory device. These files can no longer be recovered. The squeeze operation can take as long as several minutes if it needs to erase and rewrite most of the Flash memory space on a PCMCIA card.


• format - Erases all of the files on a Flash device, and prepares the Flash device to be used by the platform.


• verify - Recomputes and verifies the checksum of a file in Flash memory. Assumes the file was written to the Flash device correctly. If the file was corrupted when it was originally written to the device, the verify command will never flag an error. The verify command is only useful for PCMCIA Flash cards because they have the ability to store checksums on files. The ATA Flash disks don't have the ability to store checksums so the verify command traditionally was not supported. However, in Cisco IOS software version 12.2T and later, the verify command has been updated with an MD5 option so it is now possible to get an MD5 hash on images stored in an ATA Flash disk and compare that hash to what is listed in the Cisco IOS Upgrade Planner ( registered customers only) .

Note: To use the troubleshooting tools described in this document, you must be a registered user and you must be logged in.

Sample Outputs

In the sample outputs below, the Cisco IOS software file names may vary depending on the type of platform used.

Note: Before using the commands below, use the dir{device:} command to display a list of files on a Flash memory. Also, the show{device:} command is available for PCMCIA Flash cards and will show you files marked as deleted, but that have not been squeezed yet.

• delete - "Marks" files as deleted, but the files still occupy space in Flash memory. Verify that you have enough space in the Flash memory card by using the dir{device:} command or the show{device:}command. If there is not enough room, then you must delete and squeeze some files to make enough space.

• undelete - To recover a file marked "deleted" on a Class A Flash filesystem. For Class A Flash filesystems, when you delete a file, the Cisco IOS software simply marks the file as deleted, but it does not erase the file on linear PCMCIA flash cards.

This command allows you to recover a "deleted" file on a specified Flash memory device as long as the file is on a linear PCMCIA flash card. You must undelete a file by its index as listed in the output of the show{device:}command.

  C7513#undelete 1 slot0: In this example, the file with the index of 1 will be undeleted from slot0. The index number was obtained from the output of theshow{device:} command as seen below. The first field (-#-) is the index field:

  C7513#show slot0:
  -#- ED --type-- --crc--- -seek-- nlen -length- -----date/time------ name
  1 .D image 9CAA2A55 83C50C 19 8504460 Jan 13 2000 20:03:02 rsp-pv-mz.120-10.
  7879412 bytes available (8504588 bytes used)

• squeeze - To permanently delete Flash files by squeezing a Class A Flash filesystem on linear PCMCIA Flash cards. This command is not used on ATA PCMCIA Flash disks. When Flash memory is full, you might need to rearrange the files so that the space used by the files marked "deleted" can be reclaimed. When you issue thesqueeze command, the router copies all valid files to the beginning of Flash memory and erases all files marked "deleted or "error". At this point, you cannot recover "deleted" files and you can write to the reclaimed Flash memory space.

Note: The squeeze command is available starting from Cisco IOS software release 11.1. If your Cisco IOS software release is earlier than 11.1, then you need to erase the entire Flash using theformat command and then copy the image which was in the router earlier.

  C7513#squeeze slot0:
  All deleted files will be removed. Continue? [confirm]y
  Squeeze operation may take a while. Continue? [confirm]y
  Squeezing...
  Squeeze of slot0 complete

• format- To format a Class A Flash filesystem. In some cases, you might need to insert a new PCMCIA Flash memory card and load images or back up configuration files onto it. Before you can use a new Flash memory card, you must format it. To be sure that a platform is able to boot from a linear PCMCIA Flash card, you should format it on the platform in question; however, the ability to boot from an ATA Flash disk is often times dependent on the platform.

  C7513#format slot0:
  Format operation may take a while. Continue? [confirm]y
  Format operation will destroy all data in "slot0:". Continue? [confirm]y
  Formatting sector 160.....
  Format of slot0: complete

Class B Filesystem

The Filesystem Class B table above describes which filesystems the various Cisco hardware platforms belong to. Platforms listed under the same filesystem class share the same filesystem structure. The methods used for erasing, partitioning, deleting, and recovering files depend on the class of the filesystem. Class B filesystems support the following file management commands:

• delete - "Marks" files as deleted, but the files still occupy space in Flash memory.


• erase - Erases all of the files on a Flash device.


• partition - To separate Flash memory into partitions on Class B filesystem platforms. Use the no form of this command to undo partitioning and to restore Flash memory to one partition.

In the sample outputs, the Cisco IOS software file names may vary depending upon the type of platform used.

Note: Before using the commands below, use thedir{device:} command or the show{device:} command to display a list of files on a Flash memory.:

• Delete- "Marks" files as deleted, but the files still occupy space in Flash memory. Verify that you have enough space in the Flash memory card by using the dir{device:}command. If there is not enough room, then you must erase the Flash to recover the space. The only way to recover a deleted file is to erase the Flash and download the file again from a Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) or File Transfer Protocol (FTP) server.

  3640#delete slot1:c3640-i-mz.113-11c.bin
  Delete filename [c3640-i-mz.113-11c.bin]? y
  Delete slot1:c3640-i-mz.113-11c.bin? [confirm]y

Note: To reclaim space on Class B Flash filesystems after deleting files using the delete command, you must use the erase command. Remember: the erase command erases all of the files in the Flash filesystem.

• erase - This command erases all of the files in the Flash filesystem; none of the files in the filesystem can be recovered.

The following example shows the erase command on the 3640 router. The erase command is used to erase the files in slot1.

For Cisco 1600 series and Cisco 3600 series:

partition flash-filesystem: [number-of-partitions][partition-size]

no partition flash-filesystem:

All other Class B platforms:

partition flash partitions [size1 size2]

no partition flash

The following example divides the Flash memory card in slot 0 into three partitions: two 8 MB and one 4 MB in size on the Cisco 3600:

  3640# configure terminal
  Enter configuration commands, one per line. End with CNTL/Z.
  3640(config)# partition slot0: 3 8 8 4

Use the show slot0 command to check the partitions. You can see from the example below that there are three partitions: two with 8 MB and one with 4 MB. The first partition is loaded with a Cisco IOS software image after the partitions are created.

  3640#show slot0:
  PCMCIA Slot0 flash directory, partition 1:
  File Length Name/status
  1 2779832 c3640-i-mz.113-11c.bin
  [2779896 bytes used, 5608712 available, 8388608 total]
  8192K bytes of processor board PCMCIA Slot0 flash (Read/Write)
  PCMCIA Slot0 flash directory, partition 2:
  No files in PCMCIA Slot0 flash
  [0 bytes used, 8388608 available, 8388608 total]
  8192K bytes of processor board PCMCIA Slot0 flash (Read/Write)
  PCMCIA Slot0 flash directory, partition 3:
  No files in PCMCIA Slot0 flash
  [0 bytes used, 3932160 available, 3932160 total]
  4096K bytes of processor board PCMCIA Slot0 flash (Read/Write)

To remove the partition, use the no partition command:
  3640# configure terminal
  3640(config)#no partition flash 3 8 8 4
  3640(config)#

Class C Filesystem

The Filesystem Class C table above describes which filesystems the various Cisco hardware platforms belong to. Platforms listed under the same filesystem class share the same filesystem structure. The methods used for erasing, deleting, and recovering files depend on the class of the filesystem. Class C filesystems support the following file management commands:

• delete - "Marks" files as deleted, but the files still occupy space in Flash memory. Use the undelete command to recover these files later.


• squeeze- Permanently removes all of the files marked "deleted" or "error" from the specified Flash memory device. These files can no longer be recovered. The squeeze operation can take as long as several minutes if it needs to erase and rewrite most of the Flash memory space on a PCMCIA card.


• format - Erases all of the files on a Flash device.


• mkdir - To create a new directory in a Class C Flash filesystem.


• rmdir - To remove an existing directory in a Class C Flash filesystem.


• rename - To rename a file in a Class C Flash filesystem.

Sample Outputs

In the sample outputs below, the Cisco IOS software file names may vary depending upon the type of platform used.

Note: Before using the commands below, use the dir{device:} command or show{device:} command to display a list of files on a Flash filesystem.

• Delete- "Marks" files as deleted, but the files still occupy space in Flash memory. Verify that you have enough space in the Flash memory card by using the dir{device:} command. If there is not enough room, then you must delete and squeeze some files to make enough space.

After deleting the file above, you can squeeze the filesystem using the squeeze command.

  7206#squeeze slot1:
  All deleted files will be removed. Continue? [confirm]y
  Squeeze operation may take a while. Continue? [confirm]y
  Squeeze of slot1 complete

Note: The squeeze command is available starting from Cisco IOS software release 11.1. If your Cisco IOS software release is earlier than 11.1, you need to erase the entire Flash using the format command and then copy the image which was in the router before.

Format - To format a Class C Flash filesystem. In some cases, you might need to insert a new PCMCIA Flash memory card and load images or back up configuration files onto it. Before you can use a new Flash memory card, you must format it.

Example 2: Using a Linear Flash Card

  7206#format slot1:
  Format operation may take a while. Continue? [confirm]y
  Format operation will destroy all data in "slot1:". Continue? [confirm]y
  Enter volume ID (up to 64 chars)[default slot1]:
  Formatting sector 1
  Format of slot1 complete
  7206#

Related Information

• Using the Cisco IOS File System


• How to Choose a Cisco IOS Software Release


• Technical Support - Cisco Systems

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