OK, since you asked
My system: A fairly generic desktop PC running Ubuntu 11.10.
SD cards are generic SanDisk, in sizes ranging from 1GB to 4GB.
The USB card reader for these is also generic.
The Beagleboard is quite new, purchased in December and
labeled C5.
I started by trying the 'Validation' procedure from the BBSRM,
but was told (probably by J. Kridner or G. Coley) that this
procedure wasn't valid.
I generally start things off by formatting the card with the
HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool in Windows, and that
part seems to go OK.
I've been told by R.C Nelson that the version of fdsik on my
Ubuntu workstation needs a specific command line argument, to wit
fdisk -c=dos -u=cylinders [...]
though that hasn't helped, and ISTM I can set those switches
within fdisk itself. Indeed when I switch to "cylinders" within
fdisk, fdisk obliges but tells me that this feature is DEPRECATED.
fdisk identifies itself as (util-linux 2.19.1)
I've also tried formatting the card with gparted (the GUI
app) with no better results, but perhaps it uses fdisk
anyway, so that's no surprise.
I've also tried the mkcard.sh script, which didn't work either.
What I need (I think) is a foolproof recipe for formatting
my SD card. ISTM, it needs to be a dual-partition affair
but I might be wrong about that. Most procedures have
a set of files placed in the FAT/boot partition (eg. MLO,
u-boot.bin, uImage, maybe some .scr files) and a
root filesytem that gets un-tarred into the 2nd, Linux
partition.
The other thing I need is a coherent and explicit set of files
to load on to the board; valid URLs to obtain them, and their
names as they should appear on the SD card, and the SD
partitions in which to place them. [As I understand it, the
root filesystem gets un-tarred directly to the SD card, rather
than copied.]
There are *numerous* versions of the Beagleboard SD
card formatting/setup procedure located on the web, and I
have tried many of them. If you can point to one that's
up-to-date and bullet-proof, I'd be happy to try it --
or if I've already tried it, I'll try it again and let you know
how it goes.
The only procedure that worked was a complete SD card
'image' that gets written onto the card by
"Win32DiskImager.exe" in one swell foop. (per the
Circuitco website.)
That's nice -- it seems to prove the hardware is OK,
but it doesn't teach me much and it's not an image I
can easily customize.
/Rafe