[syslinux] Extremely broken BIOS detected

[Leif W]

H. Peter Anvin wrote:
 > Leif W wrote:
 >> Hello,
 >>
 >> I did a BIOS update and now get an error message I never saw before.
 >
 > It's very simple, you installed a BIOS with a broken El Torito stack.
 >
 > The fact that it boots anyway means that ISOLINUX was able to
 > successfully guess how to work around it.


Ok, now I'd like to gather specific information, in which way is it 
broken, where does it fail, and why?  ASUS is notorious for the poor 
customer support and poor English<->Chinese translation.  I'd like to 
send them very simple detailed information about what is broken and why 
it is a problem, and instructions on how to reliably reproduce the 
problem so they can fix their BIOS.  I expect a reply from them along 
the lines that "Since it work, it's no problem."

The Knoppix image was positively verified on the HDD, and all of the 
files verified (both by MD5 checks).  I'm not sure how to verify if the 
El Torito segment was properly burnt, or how to rule out faulty DVD 
burner, incompatible DVD media, burn software bugs, etc, that may have 
affected the El Torito portion of the DVD.  Additionally, it's very hard 
to catch the error message as it's overwritten by a graphic image very 
quickly, and must be cause with a PAUSE key after several reboot attempts.

So, I guess I'm wondering how to generate an ISO image that doesn't do 
anything except spew out copious amounts of debug information, and if 
it's more than can fit on a standard post-POST 80x25 text display, then 
either allow me to scroll back, or better, save to a floppy.  It could 
be a file system such as FAT12 or newer/bigger, or just raw to the 
floppy, I don't care, as long as I can get at the error message data.

Thanks for the tips.

Leif