[syslinux] syslinux hard drive boot problem

[H. Peter Anvin]

Mathew Plattz wrote:
> I've recently moved from pxegrub to pxelinux (well, syslinux...) for 
> many benefits.  (memory fingerprint, etc)
> 
> Its running perfectly, and exactly how I like it, except.
> 
> LOCALBOOT 0
> 
> DOES NOT actually mount and boot the hard drive.  All it seems to be 
> doing is actually return error to the BIOS, which then boots the next 
> device in it's list.
> 

That's correct.

> This isnt a problem on most systems, but on some systems which have 3rd 
> party SCSI/SATA RAID Cards, the BIOS only shows the option for "1st 
> Device" to either, "boot network, boot scsi/raid"
> 
> So, when syslinux boot, it kicks in the 1st device (network) then when I 
> want to hdd boot (LOCALBOOT 0) - it returns, then kicks in 2nd device 
> (where there isnt an option for "scsi/raid", only cdrom, floppy, hdd)
> 
> Before when we used grub, grub manually mounted the hdd, then booted it.
> 
> Is there a CVS patch to make syslinux do this isn't of merely just 
> returning an error to the BIOS?
> 

There isn't a CVS patch; there is an included module called chain.c32. 
Use it like this:

label harddisk
	kernel chain.c32
	append hd0

If you want, you can also specify a partition number:

label harddisk
	kernel chain.c32
	append hd0 3

	-hpa