[syslinux] SYSLINUX doing odd things since upgrade

Chris.Young at serco.com Chris.Young at serco.com
Wed Jan 30 02:56:31 PST 2008


syslinux-bounces at zytor.com wrote on 28/01/2008 18:15:36:

> Chris.Young at serco.com wrote:
> > Hello list!
> > 
> > I'm tearing my hair out over this.  I have a USB flash drive that has 
been 
> > working nicely with SYSLINUX for about a year, and I have upgraded 
> > SYSLINUX on it a couple of times during that period with no ill 
effects - 
> > including a complete format/re-install from scratch.
> > 
> > However, on Friday I was using this drive (and it was working) and I 
> > decided to upgrade to the latest version (3.60) from whatever was 
> > installed (I think 3.54).  I also updated MEMDISK and MENU.C32 at the 
same 
> > time.
> > 
> > SYSLINUX still boots to the prompt, but loading MENU.C32 either 
freezes, 
> > reboots the PC or - on one occasion - complains of a corrupted kernel 
> > image.   MEMDISK is similarly afflicted, as it successfully loads a 
> > compressed disk image but freezes at "loading boot sector".
> > 
> > I have tried downgrading to every version of SYSLINUX, MENU.C32 and 
> > MEMDISK  to 3.51, and even tried 3.35 out of desperation.  Even 
formatting 
> > and setting everything up from scratch as I have done in the past 
doesn't 
> > cure the problem (I use the win32 executable syslinux -mad boot f:). 
The 
> > problems are occuring on the exact same PC I was using before getting 
the 
> > problems (a Dell GX280 A06), and I tried some other PCs too just in 
case.
> > 
> > Any suggestions?  I'm lost without this - didn't realise how much I 
used 
> > it!
> > 
> 
> Since you say it fails with multiple machines... any way you could send 
> an image of the failing drive, so I could try to reproduce the boot 
> failure here?

Sent by private mail.

However... I've managed to get it working.  The drive needed to be 
formatted as FAT32 not FAT16.  This still doesn't explain why it suddenly 
stopped working after I upgraded it, and I thought it was formatted as 
FAT16 previously.  My DOS.BSS isn't working but I'm not too bothered about 
that (it's handy for the Panasonic Toughbooks which don't seem to like 
memdisk) and I can try to fix that later.

Thanks Peter for a great little bootloader.

Chris



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