[syslinux] Memdisk doesn't work without floppy drive
H. Peter Anvin
hpa at zytor.com
Fri Oct 27 08:48:36 PDT 2006
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. Changing 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
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