[syslinux] USB boot problems on Gigabyte GA-M55Plus-S3G
Ronald F. Guilmette
rfg at tristatelogic.com
Tue Jan 14 16:15:09 PST 2014
In message <BLU0-SMTP4359BC7EA366B1FB76EA9188BBF0 at phx.gbl>,
Ady <ady-sf at hotmail.com> wrote:
>I am probably misunderstanding something. We seem to go backwards.
Yes, and ever moreso.
>"Something" changed. If you now cannot see your USB drive in your
>list (press F12 during POST), there is no point on redacting
>instructions.
*Now* that I have set up the MBR partition table and the (FAT32) partition
on this USB stick using Gparted (and with the "boot" flag UNchecked in
Gparted), I _am_ able to see the USB stock in the BIOS Boot Priority
list.
>The following conditions are the ones that should give us the higher
>chances to have your USB drive bootable:
>
>_ Standard MBR;
Check. (GParted calls is "msdos" partitioning, but I'm sure they mean MBR.)
>_ Only ONE partition;
Check.
>_ The partition formatted as FAT32;
Check.
>_ The partition is marked as "active" (AKA. "boot"able) in the MBR.
See my other comments about this. The "boot" flag in GParted is
UNchecked, which apparently actually means "bootable".
>Then you need to have the content of the Clonezilla Live ISO (or the
>zip archive) expanded / extracted / copy (choose your favorite term)
>in the FAT32 partition.
Yes. I took the file clonezilla-live-2.2.1-22-amd64.zip, placed in onto
my Windows 7 system, and then had Windows itself open and then extract it
to D:\ which is/was the USB stick.
>Can you confirm this is the current situation?
With the above caveats, yes.
>Can Windows Explorer see this content?
Yes.
>Boot into your BIOS settings. Look for something similar to SATA or
>IDE or NATIVE or AHCI mode. There might be more than one setting
>regarding this mode(s). Is it set to something like "IDE compatible",
>or "AHCI" or "RAID"? Please post your BIOS settings.
You could be a little more specific here. I have no idea what you are
looking for specifically. Onboard IDE 1 and 2 are enabled. SATA II RAID
is disabled. SATA II 1 & 2 are enabled. "Legacy USB storage detect" is
enabled.
>In your BIOS, is the USB controller enabled? Is USB 2.0 enabled?
Yes.
>In your BIOS, is there some "onboard IDE controller" setting? Is it
>enabled?
Yes.
>I am not asking to change any particular setting. I just want to
>understand the current situation.
Yes, and I understand completely. It is hard to debug something like
this without being physically present.
Please do try to remember hoever that ... as I said earlier... with all
my BIOS setting just as they are, I *was* in fact able to boot Windows 7
from USB... at least part way. So it isn't as if my BIOS setting are
totally mangled, or else I wouldn't have been able to do that.
>With the USB drive connected, boot the system and use F12 during
>POST. Can you still see your USB drive listed somewhere? Possibly
>under HDD or under USB-HDD? Where is it listed?
Yes, it is listed under the Boot Priority list.
>We must regain the possibility to at least *potentially* boot to the
>USB drive before attempting any additional instructions.
I agree, unfortunately, I must report that things have gone from bad
to worse, to MUCH worse.
Now, with all of the conditions described above in effect, now when I
try to boot to the USB stick my BIOS gets down to the point of printing:
Boot from CD/DVD :
and then it just chokes, with the cursor blinking in column 1 of the next
following line.
This is with no other drives or sticks of any kind in the system... Just
the 4GB Transcend USB flash stick.
>Please use the above paragraphs / questions so to clarify the current
>situation. According to your answers, we might know how to go on.
I await your further recommendations. However this is not looking good
at all. (And strangely, the more I do things that should cause it to work
better, the less far the booting process actually seems to get.)
Regards,
rfg
P.S. I may perhaps try a different USB stick, try swaping main memory,
and perhaps even try swaping out my graphics card. I use only good
quality name brand components, but you never know.
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