cRIO no longer boots

[Larry R]

By reformat, do you mean reimage using the Imaging Tool?

[RyanN]

Originally Posted by Larry R

By reformat, do you mean reimage using the Imaging Tool?

The cRIO is nothing but a computer. Reimaging it puts a running OS on the system, but only replaces the system files... Kind of like reinstalling Windows without reformatting your hard drive.

Well, reformatting erases everything off, and installs the NI-Real Time OS to the cRIO.

If you cannot connect, try booting into Safe Mode.

I'd recommend a reformat with the reimage. No good reason not to. You will have to redeploy your code though.

[Larry R]

Problem solved:

I connected both the cRIO and Windriver laptop to the router using ethernet cables. I disabled all wireless on both laptops plus turned off the Driver Station PC. I also connected another laptop to the console output of the cRIO to watch VxWorks do its thing...or not.

1. Switched Safe Mode on and booted up.
2. Attempted to reimage and the Imaging Tool offered to reformat. Accepted the offer and reformat was successful
3. Turned off Safe Mode, rebooted and discovered on the console that the cRIO was back to IP adr 0.0.0.0
4. Used MAX to set the IP to the proper address.
5. Rebooted and ran the Imaging Tool successfully. The robot is now at v28 and will boot.

This is our one and only original cRIO and we never had this problem. Here is the cause of the problem: we ran the Imaging Tool while connected over wireless. Almost instantly, there was an abort of the imaging process and a corrupted cRIO that wouldn't boot. Lesson learned: no wireless when reimaging.

Great relief to solve this problem!