Cannot See Contents of a CD-ROM from the Extensible Firmware Interface Shell with DIR or LS Commands (304011)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Windows XP 64-Bit Edition
This article was previously published under Q304011

SYMPTOMS

When you run the DIR or LS command on the contents of your CD-ROM drive from the Extensible Firmware Interface shell, the contents of the CD-ROM may not be displayed.

CAUSE

The Extensible Firmware Interface shell only recognizes the FAT and FAT32 file systems. The CD-ROM File System (CDFS) is not supported from the Extensible Firmware Interface shell. The EFI 1.1 specification does not define the support of CDFS.

RESOLUTION

To obtain access to the contents of a CDFS partition, boot into Windows. The CD-ROM contents can be displayed by using My Computer, Windows Explorer, or from a command prompt.

STATUS

This behavior is by design.

MORE INFORMATION

You can obtain access to some files on a CD-ROM in a Windows XP-based computer from the Extensible Firmware Interface shell. This is because the Windows XP CD-ROM has two partitions. One partition is FAT and the other is CDFS. The FAT partition contains the Setupldr.efi and the \EFI\BOOT\Bootia64.efi files. The FAT partition is "seen" from the Extensible Firmware Interface shell. The CDFS partition contains all of the remaining Windows Setup files and is not seen in the Extensible Firmware Interface shell.

For a description of Extensible Firmware Interface, please see the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article:

303956 Description of Extensible Firmware Interface

For more information about the Extensible Firmware Interface FAT32 file system specification, view the following Microsoft Web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/hardware/fatgen.htm

For more information about the Extensible Firmware Interface, see the following Intel and Microsoft Web sites:

http://developer.intel.com/technology/efi

http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/EFI

The third-party products that are discussed in this article are manufactured by companies that are independent of Microsoft. Microsoft makes no warranty, implied or otherwise, regarding the performance or reliability of these products.
Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:10/18/2001
Keywords:kbenv kbprb kbui KB304011
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