[syslinux] syslinux on Windows to USB compactflash disk

[Alex Pavloff]

> Alex Pavloff wrote:
> > Hi folks,
> > 
> > I'm trying to make a CompactFlash bootable with SYSLINUX.    The hard
part is
> > that I'm trying to run SYSLINUX on Windows 2000 and am  attempting to
write
> > to the compactflash that's plugged in via a USB  reader/writer.  Its not
> > working -- Windows complains about the 16-bit subsystem  wanting direct
> > access to the drive.
> > 
> > So then is the problem SYSLINUX fighting with Windows or could it be the
USB
> > drive no allowing direct writes?
> > 
> 
> It's the former.  I'm pretty much giving up on getting Windows to behave
> sanely w.r.t. this :(
> 
> I just got mingw32 working as a cross-compilation environment; perhaps I
> will try to make a win32 version of the installer.  Better yet, anyone
> who would be willing to contribute such a beast?  All it 
> needs to do is to patch the boot sector and create LDLINUX.SYS.

I'm going to have to do this eventually.  Right now I've got FreeDOS on the
compactflash (which was made bootable by plugging the flash into an
IDE->CompactFlash and booting to a freedos bootdisk and then running sys
c:).  The reason I'm currently using FreeDOS is that I've got to query a bit
of hardware inside my machine to find the desired framebuffer video mode to
pass to the kernel with vga=.  The query runs as a COM program (that I have
written), returns a value, and then I can play DOS batch file games to call
loadlin with the correct options.

Now, if I can put the hardware query and kernel param set into SYSLINUX
somewhere, I'd rather use it (becuase I don't need all of freedos, I just
need a simple bootloader).  Can I pull this off with a minimum of fuss?  If
the answer is yes, then in a month or so (depending on my schedules) I would
be willing to do the win32 installer.

	Let me know

Alex Pavloff - apavloff at eason.com
Eason Technology -- www.eason.com