[syslinux] Memdisk doesn't work without floppy drive
Anssi Kolehmainen
anssi at aketzu.net
Fri Oct 27 11:10:46 PDT 2006
Note to self: remember to use reply to all so replies come to list also :)
On Fri, 27 Oct 2006, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> 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.
>
> 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?
There are two options in BIOS
- Floppy controller [enable / disable]
- Floppy 1 [1.44 / none]
Setting floppy 1 to none didn't help, though I didn't check what INT 13 08
reported then. Disabling floppy controller didn't help either. One thing I
didn't try was setting floppy to none and disabling controller.
--
Anssi Kolehmainen
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