[syslinux] Any way to boot a CD if no BIOS support & CD-ROM is not 100% standard?

[Nazo]

On 11/22/05, Geert Stappers <stappers at stappers.nl> wrote:
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> On Sat, Nov 19, 2005 at 12:24:05PM -0600, Nazo wrote:
> > On 11/19/05, Geert Stappers <stappers at stappers.nl> wrote:
>  <snip/>
> > > AFAICT is a laptop with an add-on CD-ROM drive
> > > but no BIOS support to boot from that drive.
> > >
> > >
> > > The most clean solution would be updating the BIOS.
> > > Contact the manufactor for detailed information.
> > >
> > > I have no clue how much they will charge for it.
> > >
> > Upgrade the BIOS?  Are you kidding me?
>
> Yes, I'm serious.
> The thing people may laugh about, is that I spend time on it.
>
> I believe that talking with eachother is a good thing.
> (ignoring a community member is surely not)

Sorry, I'm not clear on what you're trying to say with this.  I
certainly didn't ignore you.

>
> > We're not talking a simple
> > flash here, you'd have to REPLACE the BIOS.  This is a ~1995 system,
> > not a 2000+ one...  It just simply lacks the capability and if it can
> > get it via a flash, I realy seriously doubt they ever would have made
> > one for such a system anyway, and they sure as heck aren't going to
> > for one little ordinary user rather than some business running
> > thousands of the things or something.  Seriously though, I really
> > doubt Toshiba supports a laptop they made a decade ago.  Last I
> > checked they showed no sign of this anyway that I've been able to
> > find.  I can't blame them, I wouldn't expect anyone to.  If someone
> > asked me to support something I did for them ten years ago, I'd just
> > laugh at them.  It's not a question of money because I'm not BIll
> > Gates, so I don't have enough money to make it feasible for them to
> > try to rig up some kind of bios upgrade for me.
>
> All true. And what about another point of view?
>
>  * Yeah, the BIOS is what makes the CD-ROM drive a bootable device.
>
>  * It is indeed my laptop, but the lack of information renders it
>  into a thing that is owned by the manufactor.
>
>  * Mmm, I begin to understand why I was ignore at other forums.
>
>
> > > What about booting from floppy?
> > >
> >
> > Now, floppy booting works.  That's what I was saying earlier.  I had
> > hoped I could figure out how to get SBM to boot the CD-ROM and I
> > planned to use it via floppy.  My intention is to, once I get
> > something that works, include a disk image on the restore CD so that
> > it can be written to floppy.  My intention is to not rely on a floppy
> > disk to last as long as a CDR for the person I'm selling this system
> > to later.  (Floppies have the annoying tendency to die in a matter of
> > weeks in some bad cases, years in the best cases.  Whereas CDRs, if
> > you take care of them, theoretically promise up to 10 years.
> > Theoretically...)
>
> Those are problems, try thinking in solutions.
>
> * Document how to reproduce floppy from source.
>
> * Include the raw floppy image on the CD.

I already planned to do that (and even mentioned already the plan to
have it as a floppy image on the disc, though I admit I didn't feel
the need to mention documentation.  I plan to include a
self-extracting image where you just double click and it writes
itself, so documentation is pretty simple.)

>
>
> > Right now the only solution I've found is directly booting.  Thing is,
> > the kernel+initrd for anything I wish to boot MUST fit on the floppy,
> > and I have to implement such a solution on a case by case basis, and
> > there were one or two bootable CDs that I thought might benefit that
> > person, not just the restoration disc I'm planning to rig up.
>
>
> Why a kernel+initrd when all what is needed is code to boot from CD-ROM?
> IIRC does have the FreeDOS project such technique.

Code to boot from a CD-ROM?  You mean such as SBM?  I WANT code to
boot from a CD-ROM, that's what I said earlier.  Like I said already,
kernel+initrd is a bit of an awkward solution and I really would
prefer to boot the CD directly like I'm used to, complete with a nice
little isolinux+menu setup and all, but, right now I can't even boot a
really simple CD.  As for freedos, I'm not clear on what you're
referring to.  If they have a project like SBM, please point me to
whatever you're talking about, because I don't know of such a project.
 It sounds to me like you're saying to use a CD-ROM driver though. 
The problem with that is I have to load an operating system --
specifically DOS -- for loading up drivers and such if you meant what
I think you did.  At which point, if I load linux, it has to be
through one of those loaders designed to load from within an OS.  I've
never been a fan of the idea of loading an os from within another os. 
Bad enough just doing a frontend like Windows.  A DOS based solution
would be more awkward than kernel+initrd.

It's too bad you can't get chain.c32 to do it or something.  That
would solve everything...  Isn't there anything out there besides SBM
though?  SBM doesn't really look like it's exactly seeing active
developement anymore, and I prefer projects that are alive and
breathing, not old and stagnant -- at least, when I can help it and
get a choice.

>
>
> GSt
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