[syslinux] memdisk requires floppy drive to boot

[Rick Carroll]

Hello!
Below is an excerpt from the thread in October.  I have the same problem,
but my laptop (which is a Brand new HP Compaq NC6230) does not have options
in the BIOS to enable or disable floppy support. It just doesn't have one. 
I assume it leaves it enabled for USB Floppy support, but does not come with
the drive. 

My ISOLinux setup is a UBCD. I tried to make my own, but the lack of
documentation made it really daunting. I need to have the UBCD anyways
Furthermore, I was wondering why it seemed 2.88MB floppies work just fine.
Most of the floppies that come with UBCD are 1.62 or 2.88, so is it just that 
my 1.44 floppy image wont work?

Perplexed, 
Rick Carroll




Anssi Kolehmainen wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I stumbled on a rather odd problem. A brand new HP Compaq dx2200 computer 
> didn't want to boot up pxelinux+memdisk image. The computer just gave "Disk I/O 
> error" and stopped there. Workaround was rather simple... Just attach regular 
> floppy drive to the motherboard and everything started working fine.
> 
> I tried with older 2.05 (pxelinux+memdisk) and newer 3.31. Both produced same 
> non-working results when floppy drive was not connected. Ceshanging bios settings 
> (floppy controller enabled/disabled, floppy 1.44/none) didn't help (actually 
> with floppy controller disabled boot failed even with drive connected). Booting 
> works just fine with any other computer (so image & environment is OK). Boot 
> disk is made with Windows 98 boot files.
> 
> Does anybody have any ideas how to make booting work (without using extra 
> floppy drive)? Hard drive images might work, but boot images must be easily 
> modifiable from Windows XP and last time I checked there was no "loop-device" 
> for Windows.
> 

INT 13 08: Success, count = 1, BPT = f000:99a9
            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

No wonder you're having problems.  Your BIOS says there is a floppy 
drive in the system when there isn't.  Did you disable the floppy in the 
BIOS, or did you just remove the drive?

	-hpa