[syslinux] USB boot problems on Gigabyte GA-M55Plus-S3G

[Ady]

> Fdisk on FreeBSD appears to confirm that the stick is how you wished
> and expected it to be:
> 
> ====================================================================
> ******* Working on device /dev/da2 *******
> parameters extracted from in-core disklabel are:
> cylinders=243 heads=255 sectors/track=63 (16065 blks/cyl)
> 
> parameters to be used for BIOS calculations are:
> cylinders=243 heads=255 sectors/track=63 (16065 blks/cyl)
> 
> Media sector size is 512
> Warning: BIOS sector numbering starts with sector 1
> Information from DOS bootblock is:
> The data for partition 1 is:
> sysid 12 (0x0c),(DOS or Windows 95 with 32 bit FAT (LBA))
>     start 2048, size 1431552 (699 Meg), flag 0
>         beg: cyl 0/ head 32/ sector 33;
>         end: cyl 89/ head 60/ sector 35
> The data for partition 2 is:
> <UNUSED>
> The data for partition 3 is:
> <UNUSED>
> The data for partition 4 is:
> <UNUSED>
> ====================================================================
> 

> I forgot (the first time) to use F12 as you requested, so the system just
> booted normally.
> 
> The Clonezilla boot menu *did* show up.
> 
> I then went back and used F12 as you requested.
> 
> In this case also, the Clonezilla boot menu *did* show up.
> 
> I assume this all represents success.
> 
> Are we done now?
> 
 
It's up to you. You should note that your 2GB USB drive only has 1 
partition of 700MB. Don't you want to be able to use the whole drive? 
And what about the other 2 USB drives? And what about using these 
drives for something else than Clonezilla?


> P.S.  It is my sincere hope that we did not go through all of this just so
> that you could tell me "Hey Ron!  This is the (convoluted) procedure you must
> use if you want to boot Clonezilla, ever, on that motherboard."
 
As you already noticed, Clonezilla Live requests an already-formatted 
media. It's own scripts should be able to go on from that point. So 
you shouldn't need to go through all these steps each time you want 
to update Clonezilla Live. What you need is a drive with an adequate 
partitioning scheme.

Even if you find that an updated Clonezilla Live can't successfully 
boot (which might happen), the problem should be solved with just one 
command. But since we are currently not in such situation, I am 
leaving the issue for another time and another email thread, _if_ 
such problem presents itself.

Having the whole drive usable and bootable is not the same as 
updating Clonezilla Live. Solving the former is not something that 
you need to do each time you want to update Clonezilla Live.

> 
> All these experiments will result in improvements to Syslinux that will, in
> due course, make it out to the developers of Clonezilla and UBCD and OpenELEC,
> yes?
 
I happen to know that at least part of those projects are (almost 
always) working on improving bootability.

Regards,
Ady.