[syslinux] syslinux error message

[Andrew]

On Sun, 15 Aug 2004 00:09:07 -0700, H. Peter Anvin <hpa at zytor.com> wrote:


> What version of mtools do you have on that system?
pre6-3.9.8
mtoolsFM 1.9-3
> Sounds like mtools is doing something goofy.
> 	-hpa

Possibly...
The situation thus far...
installing puppy linux 0.9.2 on a 128Mb USB flash( Apacer Handy Steno 2.0)
1. tried installing from Puppy linux USB flash script. get right to end of  
script, and the
M
"Total number of sectors not a multiple of sectors per track!
Add mtools_skip_check=1 to your .mtoolsrc file to skip this test"

message appears at the end of the script process as syslinux attempts to  
write the ldlinux.sys file to the flash drive.
all other files written successfully.
syslinux is unsuccessful writing this file.

2. fire up mandrake 10 box ... (syslinux 1.76 Mandrake)
  syslinux /dev/sda1
works successfully ldlinux.sys written ok.
a
I then decided to put syslinux 2.10 on the Mandrake box but was greeted  
with the same error message...so I put the syslinux mandrake version back  
on...

tried the same thing in Windows XP syslinux version 2.10
returns an error 3xxx ( I can't remember the exact number) - from memory  
though, ldlinux.sys successfully written.

I've noticed that syslinux really screws the partition table after being  
written to the flash disk...
here is a print of my flash disk's partition table

[root at localhost root]# fdisk /dev/sda1
Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/sda1: 130 MB, 130021376 bytes
4 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1023 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 248 * 512 = 126976 bytes

      Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1p1   ?    16318986     3009568   497115833   29  Unknown
Partition 1 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
      phys=(350, 88, 29) logical=(16318985, 1, 12)
Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
      phys=(430, 253, 52) logical=(3009567, 1, 45)
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda1p2   ?    12442312     3000750   976730017    3  XENIX usr
Partition 2 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
      phys=(370, 26, 60) logical=(12442311, 1, 36)
Partition 2 has different physical/logical endings:
      phys=(210, 64, 49) logical=(3000749, 3, 25)
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda1p3   ?           1           1           0   6c  Unknown
Partition 3 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
      phys=(361, 102, 33) logical=(0, 0, 11)
Partition 3 has different physical/logical endings:
      phys=(269, 101, 36) logical=(0, 0, 10)
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda1p4         5638561     9959065   535742593   49  Unknown
Partition 4 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
      phys=(332, 76, 4) logical=(5638560, 0, 33)
Partition 4 has different physical/logical endings:
      phys=(344, 78, 21) logical=(9959064, 3, 40)
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.

Partition table entries are not in disk order

you may be thinking what's the big deal? syslinux under mandrake worked  -  
be happy?

The strange thing is that I can boot into puppy from the flash drive on my  
IBM A31 laptop (pentium 4 Mob. 1.6 MHz 512Mb ram), but
the same flash disk kernel panics on my AMD athlon 1800p 256Mb ram. trying  
to get to the bottom of this...

When booting on the athlon system, syslinuxloads vmlinuz ok, begins to  
load image.gz ok, then halfway through the loading "dots",
after about the 3rd line of dots they speed up to about twice the speed,  
image.gz finishes loading and puppy begins to start.
The kernel panics just after the ramdisk line in the loading messages...
these messages aren't logged anywhere that I can find so I can't be more  
specific thatn that...


Any clues?
please let me know if you need any more info...

Thanks for the reply H. Peter,
(it's not everyday that the software author replies to your forum post  
personally!!!)

Andrew

-- 
Andrew Williss - VK5LA
Winkie, South Australia