Fwd: [syslinux] Can't boot Syslinux from HD directly. Can indirectly?

[Nazo]

On 8/3/05, H. Peter Anvin <hpa at zytor.com> wrote:
> Nazo wrote:
> >
> > I see.  Lol, comes from not knowing a darned thing about how debug
> > works I guess.
> 
> Whupps, my mistake.
> 
> > Sorry.  Ok, tried again, this time hitting enter
> > before the g=100.  The output is this:
> >
> > AX=2100   BX=AA55   CX=0005   DX=0080   SP=FFEE   BP=0000   SI=0000   DI=0000
> > DS=0F01   ES=0F01   SS=0F01   CS=0F01   IP=0109    NV UP DI NG NZ NA PO NC
> > 0F01:0109 CC               INT      3
> >
> > Hope this helps.
> 
> Hm.  Probably not.  What the above says is that it passed the test for
> existence of EBIOS with flying colors -- there is nothing in the above
> which can be interpreted as a failure -- and yet, when we try to use it,
> it consistently fails.
> 
> You did say you have also used "syslinux -s" to install, and it still
> fails, correct?
> 
> One possibility, which I don't exactly cherish the thought of, is that
> whenever EBIOS read fails we always need to try a CBIOS read.  Part of
> why I don't cherish the thought of that is that it would require
> checking the cylinder number in the latter code, and all of this adds up
> very quickly to a lot of code which has to go into the boot sector.
> 
> I'll have to think about another way to get more visibility into
> whatever is going wrong.
> 
>         -hpa
> 
> 
> 

Yeah, I used the -s on every single attempt with syslinux after it
first started freezing up on me.  Can't even hardly see the speed
difference installed to a UDMA HD anyway.  Anyway, I can start to kind
of see why you're having a problem here.  One thing to be said for all
this is that it would kind of explain why you've had such troubles
catching this bug since it has the thing it's supposed to but
something goes wrong once you attempt to actually use it.

Anyway, feel free to ask me to try this or that from time to time. 
You have my e-mail if it's so much later I've unsubscribed or
something.  I plan to have this system as it is for a while I think,
but, there's a possibility that if I ever get up the cash to upgrade
to an Athlon 64, I might use my old Barton in this thing's place.  It
won't be any time soon though, that's for certain.