[syslinux] SYSLINUX and USB keys

[H. Peter Anvin]

Some people here have reported problems with USB keys.  I have found one 
problem which doesn't boot USB keys formatted as hard disks, and wanted 
to relate what I've found.

First of all, this is a BIOS bug.  It's an Award BIOS; I can't get it to 
show any other version information.

Second, even though the "system configuration" screen shows the USB key 
as a "hard drive", it WILL NOT try to boot it if the boot screen is set 
to USB-HDD.

It will try to boot it if set to USB-ZIP or USB-FDD, but both of those 
will crash due to geometry mismatch.  I have verified that there is no 
way to query the geometry from the BIOS (just as there isn't for real 
floppy drives.)  The only way to get that to recognize is presumably to 
format the entire key (no partition table) with the correct geometry 
expected by the BIOS (which I don't know what it is).

I suspect that these aren't the problems that some of you might have 
seen.  Unfortunately, that means I don't have any way of reproducing them.

	-hpa