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

[Dag Wieers]

On Wed, 21 Jan 2004, Dag Wieers wrote:

> On Tue, 20 Jan 2004, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> 
> > Dag Wieers wrote:
> > > 
> > > I can try later on a T23 too, but I fear that it won't make a difference.
> > > Is it possible that all the Thinkpads have this failure, or is it maybe 
> > > some conflict between memdisk and the BIOS that has not been discovered 
> > > yet ?
> > 
> > It's entirely possible.  USB and BIOS actually match extremely poorly,
> > and what I've seen of BIOS code indicate that most USB support is a
> > total hatchet job.
> 
> Ok, FWIW, here's another output from a Thinkpad T23 trying to load FreeDOS 
> from syslinux 2.08.

I now tested it on an IBM eServer e325 with latest BIOS (a completely 
different BIOS than the thinkpad BIOSes).

I have the same behaviour. It freezes after booting DOS. Here is some 
output:

* FreeDOS

	MEMDISK 2.08 2003-12-12  Copyright 2001-2003 H. Peter Anvin
	e820: 0000000000000000 0000000000099000 1
	e820: 0000000000090000 0000000000007000 2
	e820: 00000000000d4000 000000000002c000 2
	e820: 0000000000100000 00000000fbe70000 1
	e820: 00000000fbf70000 000000000000b000 3
	e820: 00000000fbf7b000 0000000000005000 4
	e820: 00000000fbf80000 0000000000080000 2
	e820: 00000000fec00000 0000000000000400 2
	e820: 00000000fee80000 0000000000001000 2
	e820: 00000000fff80000 0000000000080000 2
	e820: 0000000100000000 0000000000000000 1
	Ramdisk at 0x37fa5000, length 0x0004a1c7
	gzip image: decompressed addr 0xfbe08000, len 0x00168000: ok
	command line:
	Disk is floppy, 1440 K, C/H/S = 80/2/18
	Total size needed = 1477 bytes, allocating 2K
	Old dos memory at 0x99000 (map says 0x99000), loading at 0x98800
	1588: 0xffff  15E801: 0x3c00 0xfae0
	INT 13 08: Success, count = 0, BPT = 0000=0000
	old: int13 = cf000825  int15 = f000f859
	new: int13 = 98800008  int15 = 98800272
	Loading boot sector... booting...
	FreeDOS kernel version 1.1.32a (Build 2032a) [Sep 24 2003 21:58:48]
	Kernel compatibility 7.10 - WATCOMC - FAT32 support

	(C) Copyright 1995-2003 Pasquale J. Villani and The FreeDOS Project.
	All Rights Reserved. This is free software and comes with ABSOLUTELY NO
	WARRANTY; ladadi ladada...
	...
	either version 2, or (at your option) any later version.
	 - InitDisk
	Invalid Opcode at D2C4 0624 0093 0223 0008 2920 FFFF 20B4 FFFF 9C01 0001 0624 FFFF


* MSDOS 6.22

	MEMDISK 2.08 2003-12-12  Copyright 2001-2003 H. Peter Anvin
	e820: 0000000000000000 0000000000099000 1
	e820: 0000000000090000 0000000000007000 2
	e820: 00000000000d4000 000000000002c000 2
	e820: 0000000000100000 00000000fbe70000 1
	e820: 00000000fbf70000 000000000000b000 3
	e820: 00000000fbf7b000 0000000000005000 4
	e820: 00000000fbf80000 0000000000080000 2
	e820: 00000000fec00000 0000000000000400 2
	e820: 00000000fee80000 0000000000001000 2
	e820: 00000000fff80000 0000000000080000 2
	e820: 0000000100000000 0000000000000000 1
	Ramdisk at 0x37f07000, length 0x000e800e
	gzip image: decompressed addr 0xfbe08000, len 0x00168000: ok
	command line:
	Disk is floppy, 1440 K, C/H/S = 80/2/18
	Total size needed = 1477 bytes, allocating 2K 
	Old dos memory at 0x99000 (map says 0x99000), loading at 0x98800
	1588: 0xffff  15E801: 0x3c00 0xfae0
	INT 13 08: Success, count = 0, BPT = 0000=0000
	old: int13 = cf000825  int15 = f000f859
	new: int13 = 98800008  int15 = 98800272
	Loading boot sector... booting...
	Starting MS-DOS...

I'll be sending more bug-reports whenever I test it on new machines. Until 
now none of the systems I tested could successfully boot any DOS from 
USB using memdisk.

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