[syslinux] Problem booting from CF/SD cards and USB Flashdrives using syslinux

c.lee111 at gmail.com c.lee111 at gmail.com
Mon Aug 20 17:39:27 PDT 2007


On Sun, 19 Aug 2007, H. Peter Anvin wrote:

> c.lee111 at gmail.com wrote:
> > [root at localhost mystuff]# /usr/share/syslinux/mkdiskimage -z /dev/sdg 0 64 32
> > [root at localhost mystuff]# syslinux /dev/sdg1
> > 
> > PS. This change to using mkdiskimage would most likely work better than 
> > the above since it handles larger (1 gig+) SD/CF/USB Flashdrives better.
> > 
> > Well, it does on my system....
> > 
> > [root at localhost clee2]# /usr/share/syslinux/mkdiskimage -z /dev/sdg 0 255 63
> > [root at localhost clee2]# syslinux /dev/sdg1
> 
> -z is redundant with "64 32".  Either way, there are a *LOT* of systems
> in the field which will only correctly to USB drives with zipdrive
> geometry, so I think this may very well be bad advice.  However, it's
> hard to say what will work on more systems, given how utterly rotten the
> situation in the field is.
> 
> 	-hpa

I was using -z to set the values to 64 32 in order to flush any 
garbage that may have been picked up from the usb drive before changing 
them to 0 255 63.

What I'm wondering though is was I in fact running into a variation of 
the bug that older versions of lilo had with hard drives that fdisk 
mentioned with syslinux, and would it be possible to do the same 
kind of fix that the newer versions of lilo did to get around it for 
syslinux?

Because if in fact that was the case, it would explain why I could 
create bootable usb drives under Win98se but not under syslinux without 
using mkdiskimage to change the drive geometry, because the bootloader
Win98se installed on the usb drive wasn't affected by the original drive 
geometry.
 

Just a thought.

Chris






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