[syslinux] PXE Hanging

[Nigel Feltham]

Hi,

I have been trying to boot a PC based terminal using your PXELINUX project 
and I am having a problem.

The Terminal (a Netier NetXpress XL2000) has a m-systems Disk-On-Chip 2000 
flash memory module which is normally used to boot a cut-down version of 
WinNT.  I work in a repair department where we often have to open up these 
terminals and temporarily install a hard-drive to reflash the disk-on-chip 
based firmware so I was hoping to make repairs easier by netbooting then 
reflashing over the network.

These terminals have PXE compatible network bios and are based on Pentium 
technology. They boot linux correctly using PXELINUX if the flash memory is 
disabled but when enabled PXELINUX gets as far as loading the kernel, 
displays a 'ready' message then hangs. It does the same when using memtest86 
as kernel image (works without flash, hangs with it). Is this a known problem 
and is there a way I can patch your source to avoid the problem ( the flash 
memory simulates an IDE device but may be using some memory your loader 
needs?). 

Using memdisk to try booting a floppy disk image displays a disk error (these 
terminals have no floppy drives installed). I will try using a hard-disk 
image when I work out an easy way to create one.

Thanks for your help,
Nigel