[syslinux] isolinux cd does not boot

Filippo Carletti carletti at mobilia.it
Wed Feb 22 07:59:10 PST 2006


While developing a custom distro based on CentOS we experienced a 
"strange" problem: the cd didn't boot on some machines where it 
previously did.

We build the cd using this command:

bootimg='isolinux/isolinux.bin'
bootcat='isolinux/boot.cat'
#mkisopts='-r -N -L -d -D -J'
mkisopts='-r -J'
mkisofs $mkisopts \
         -V "$distname $distvers" \
         -A "$distname created on $today" \
         -b "$bootimg" \
         -c "$bootcat" \
         -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table \
         -x lost+found \
         -x CVS \
         -o "../smeserver-$distvers".iso \
         .

syslinux-2.11-1 from CentOS 4.2

I tried using the isolinux-debug.bin but it never loaded, the cdrom 
activity led flashed briefly and the pc booted from hard disk.

Using isoinfo -d we noted that all previously working cd had the boot 
catalog stored on sector 171, while the cd that didn't boot had it on 173.

We didn't find a pattern of machines/bios that have this problem, and 
only identified sector 173 as problematic.

As a workaround, removing joilet extensions also moves boot.cat on a 
different sector and the cd boots.

Do you know of other sectors where boot catalog shouldn't be?

Thanks

Ciao,
Filippo




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