[syslinux] Using extlinux

[H. Peter Anvin]

Cullimore, Shaun (ACHE) wrote:
> I am trying to boot Linux from a USB memory device containing an ext2
> file system using extlinux and having a bit of trouble. Apologies for
> any naiive questions and assumptions. The USB device is an 8M byte
> Compact Flash card in a USB reader.

Are you booting in USB-HDD or USB-ZIP mode?

> I used fdisk to create a single partition across the whole of the device
> (partition 4 - is that important?) and made it bootable. Fdsik reported
> the partition table as:
> 
> Disk /dev/sdc: 8 MB, 8224768 bytes
> 1 heads, 16 sectors/track, 1004 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 16 * 512 = 8192 bytes

Note that what you have isn't zipdisk geometry, so if you're trying to 
boot in USB-ZIP mode it's going to fail.

> I unmounted the device, put it into another computer with the BIOS set
> to boot from a USB device and got the following messages:
> 
> "Attempting boot from USB device
> EXTLINUX 3.02 2005-01-04 Copyright (c) 1994-2005 H. Peter Anvin"
> 

This is common for a geometry mismatch; you can still read the early 
parts of the disk, where extlinux itself tends to reside.

	-hpa