[syslinux] pxelinux/memdisk booting MSDOS floppy image requires local floppy disk

[H. Peter Anvin]

Andre Dalle wrote:
> I found that if I do not have a local floppy installed and enabled on my client,
> I will get the error 'Non-system disk' when I try to boot DOS floppy images.
> 
> NT or Syslinux floppy images boot fine.
> 
> If I enable the floppy in the BIOS, then it boots the DOS floppies just fine.
> 
> Is this normal?  Is there a workaround?
> 
> There are MS-DOS images, so perhaps this is an MS-DOS limitation.
> 

Sort of.  MS-DOS relies heavily on groping around in BIOS internal data 
structures, and if there are no floppies at all it's possible the BIOS 
doesn't initialize them properly.  Now, MEMDISK tries to modify these, 
but it's probably can't actually initialize them from scratch.  Try the 
latest -pre version, though.

	-hpa