[syslinux] CF boot stops after version and date output

[H. Peter Anvin]

John Hohm wrote:
> 
> Unfortunately there is no newer BIOS for the board (an Intel SE7501WV2).
> 
> The BIOS appears not to be using a simulation mode; the adapter I am
> using claims to be an IDE hard drive (it should put the CompactFlash
> into TrueIDE mode) and the BIOS seems to recognize it as such.
> 
> I made a hacked MBR that dumps out the int13h ah=08h results, and it
> reported the normal parameters for a 128MB CompactFlash: 978/8/32 C/H/S.
> The partition table and the FAT16 partition also have that geometry.
> 

OK, that's very odd, then.  Hard disk BIOSes are very stable and these sort of 
things shouldn't happen.

> 
>>Other than that I probably can't help you.
> 
> Just for debugging I'm going to try some completely different boot
> loaders, but I eventually want SYSLINUX because I'm going to use LEAF.
> 
> Do you know of any other software that can assist in debugging a boot
> problem like this?  Something like isolinux-debug but for hard drives?
> 
> Regardless, thanks very much for your help so far, and for writing
> SYSLINUX.
> 

No, it's pretty tricky, especially when dealing with a failure that only 
happens on one specific machine (and you don't have access to an ICE.)

Perhaps you could send me an image of your card (privately) and I can at least 
see if there is anything obviously wrong.

	-hpa