[syslinux] Windows Dos testing

[Nazo]

On 8/15/05, Geert Stappers <stappers at stappers.nl> wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 14, 2005 at 07:04:18PM -0500, Nazo wrote:
> > On 8/14/05, Jeff Sadowski <jeff_sadowski at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > Well I'll need to do more experiments first.
> > > I need to go out and find fdisk for windows.
> > > Ok like I said linux worked great and I think I'll
> > > just create a bootable cd to create a usb bootable
> > > sticks.(to give to windows users). Here is what I did
> > > for testing in windows. I started with zeroing out the
> > > flash drive in linux so that I knew I started from
> > > ground zero ie:
> > > "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1024 count=1000"
> > > then I put the usb stick in a windows machine.
> > > I let windows format the disk. (bad idea)
> > > It didn't partition the disk at all.(didn't know till
> > > I looked at it in linux) And then I used syslinux on
> > > it with the -m flag and tried to boot it. It didn't
> > > work. I was looking for a full proof method in windows
> > > but windows needs work itself. So I'll get back to you
> > > guys on this when I have some time to experiment.
> >
> > Just point your windows users to this tool:
> > http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/hpcpqdt/us/download/20306.html
> > Officially you're only supposed to use it if you have an HP usb
> > storage device.  Apparently it's not smart enough to check if you
> > accidentally put in, oh, say a PNY drive.  ^_^
> 
> I hope that this posting helps the readers of the archive.
> Please reply below the text.
> 
> 
> Cheers
> Geert Stappers
> 
> P.S.
> My apology to those who are unhappy with a complete resend.
> 

Oops, sorry.  Didn't really know which end to put it on.

While I'm at it, I probably should have been more descriptive.  This
HP tool is used to properly format a flash drive, but, it is smart
enough to do the partitioning and all apparently.  People have
reported that it has gotten a surprising number of devices bootable,
though I suppose it doesn't do anything so nice as the Zip drive
geometry for those braindead bioses that prefer to assume rather than
actually look.  Well, it works for me anyway on my only two flash
drives (one is a MP3 player which doesn't like syslinux and won't play
MP3s if I put syslinux on there, but still doesn't mind having been
formatted by the hp tool, the other is a proper PNY drive which works
wonderfully with syslinux and I'm able to keep all my rescue boot
images on it.

Windows users can use that tool for formatting the drive (of course,
attach a warning when sending them to it that it erases all data
obviously in case it's only 110% clear) then install syslinux using
the windows installer (heh, I'd suggest that there should be a GUI,
but, I'd just get told "great idea, go build one.")