[syslinux] Bug-report: Booting DOS images from USB

[Dag Wieers]

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004, Josef Siemes wrote:

Hey Josef,

> > The software used is:
> > 
> > 	syslinux 1.08
> 
> You mean 2.08, correct?
> 
> > 	memdisk 1.08
> 
> Dito.

Correct.

> > I have the same problems when booting memdisk via grub or lilo.
> > The only noticeable difference between syslinux and grub/lilo is that when 
> > booting FreeDOS with syslinux I get a division-by-zero error 
> > and a stack-trace.
> 
> Did you try to boot these images via hard disk?

I should have mentioned that they work using isolinux and pxelinux.
So I'm sure the images are not at fault.


> Did you try to set up a FAT (no VFAT) Filesystem on the USB stick? Syslinux can't
> do anything about vfat, it only uses FAT.

I'm not sure what exactly 'vfat' is, I thought it was fat32 with a fat16 
compatibility. (Since I never had any problems using vfat on both fat32 
and fat16 systems)

But since it is booting and it can access both the kernel (memdisk) and 
the ramdisk (the DOS image), I figured the problem is not accessing the 
USB (or device related) but rather a bug or incompatibility with the BIOS.

I had hoped the output would have indicated something as I don't 
understand it, alas ;)

PS I haven't found many success cases on the web though, so there actually 
may be a problem somewhere.

--   dag wieers,  dag at wieers.com,  http://dag.wieers.com/   --
[Any errors in spelling, tact or fact are transmission errors]