[syslinux] booting on a dos software

Quinn plattel at tiscali.dk
Sat Aug 20 10:10:45 PDT 2005


Vanessa Conchodon wrote:

> Hi!
>
> My machine is based on an VIA card with a nehemiah 666Hz.
> Not an IBM one, unfortunately for you.
> If you need other details, don't hesitate to ask me.
>
> Btw, if you have made lots of experiments, you have perhaps
> the answer to one of my trouble.
> It seems that USB keys are not all identical: I have 2
> different USB keys which are both bootable. I can boot one
> key on one machine and the other key on another machine
> (different from the first one, even if it's also a VIA proc
> in it). But I can't swap the keys: machines don't recognize
> the other keys. Even reformating the keys does'nt help.
> And the BIOS is the same, except the version I'm not sure of.
> As I need to specify an USB key to buy, if you have an
> idea about why an USB key doesn't boot on a machine but do
> on another, I would be grateful ;o)
>
> Regards,
>         Vanessa.
>
>
> Quinn wrote:
>
>> Hello Vanessa,
>>
>> You seem to be able to get a dos image to boot via memdisk via 
>> syslinux via a usb key.  I am curious, what machine are
>> you booting this configuration from?  I did a lot of experiments with 
>> this type of config and found out that it works on most machines
>> except IBM (probable memdisk bug, but unable to prove it).
>>
>> Quinn
>>
>>
>> Vanessa Conchodon wrote:
>>
Booting works fine for me on all machines that are able to boot usb 
storage devices.  I booted the machine with dos on a floppy and used the 
bios to help me get access to the key and then use "fdisk", "format c: 
/s" to make it bootable.  Then used windows and made it syslinux 
bootable with "syslinux d:".

It otherwise works fine with the exception of memdisk on IBM machines.

Quinn




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