[syslinux] Syslinux 3.70 - BSS DOS boot says: "Could not find kernel Image: linux".

[Gene Cumm]

On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 10:39 AM, Radio Tron <paleywiener at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hello, I'm trying to create and boot a Win98SE-DOS OS through Hard Disk emulation. My src files are from a Win98SE 1440K floppy image file, with a x86 boot sector (dl'd from the net - I have no floppy drive and a slow net link 3.2KB).
>
> I don't know what to put into the partition boot record of my image and how to load dos.bss properly (the docs explain for floppy images not for HD images). Could someone help. I don't have a fast link so I can't download lots of stuff and I have no physical floppy disk present on any of my two machines (Celeron 400Mhz and Cyrix 233 - acts as my test client)
>

Hmm... it does but possibly some of the finer points might be
missing(saying procedure is identical).

>
> Can I use the COM option in Syslinux to boot MSDOS directly by skipping the boot loader bit and running IBMBIO.COM in PCDOS.. or some other file in Win98SE-DOS
>

I think that's the intention behind obtaining the boot sector from the
floppy image.

> cat syslinux.cfg
> LABEL PCDOS/Ghost Boot - Console Connect
>      SAY Loading: DOS Boot Loader.....
>      TIMEOUT 100
>      BSS dos.bss
>
> (TIMEOUT doesn't seem to be working.. I get:
> "Could not find kernel image: linux", instantly!)

I think the order is wrong to get the desired behavior.  Do you want
it to always boot the desired LABEL statement but present the boot:
prompt for a timout of 100?

Also, I'm unsure if labels including " " (blank space) or "/" are
allowed (SYSLINUX did mangle label names to DOS file names 8.3 but no
longer.  I always stick to nice Linux/vfat file names to be
safe[-_.a-zA-Z0-9]).  "SAY" might not be allowed within the "LABEL"
statement.

DEFAULT pc_ghost
TIMEOUT 100

LABEL pc_ghost
	MENU LABEL PCDOS/Ghost Boot - Console Connect
	BSS dos.bss

>
> SYSLINUX 3.70 0x490fedad EBIOS [etc...]
> Loading: DOS Boot Loader......
> Could not find kernel image: linux
> boot:
> [repeats]
>

What do you mean by "[repeats]"?  Do you mean that if you hit the
enter key it says:
"Could not find kernel image: linux
boot:"
again?

Seeing as you already have QEMU, it would probably work better if you
created a copy of the Win98SE image, use it as a floppy disk image to
QEMU, along with the other two ATA devices you're using already (1
image and the CD is unknown).  ebd.cab contains fdisk.com, format.com,
and sys.com which would allow you to make the FAT filesystem on the
HDD image bootable.  I don't think that using the bss file generated
from the floppy will work on the HDD image as the two filesystems will
differ, at least in size if not type (FAT 12/16).

-Gene