[syslinux] Gigabyte motherboards and Syslinux

[H. Peter Anvin]

Rodney Beede wrote:
> 
> Perhaps something in the NTLDR boot loader on the BartPE usb key is
> also hard coded by the motherboard bios?  One possible attack avenue
> may be to load syslinux via the NT boot loader as a menu option.  It
> has an Award bios if that helps.
> 
> I found the usbkeys.txt that discusses modifying the partition
> structure on the usb device so it more closely mimics a USB-ZIP
> device.  I believe BartPE uses this method of partition creation which
> may explain why it works.  I'll try doing that, booting in USB-ZIP,
> and see if it works.
> 

Ah, yes, I have seen this bug with Award BIOSes in the past.

The workaround is to use a partition table with zipdrive geometry (64 
heads, 32 sectors) and boot in USB-ZIP mode.  You might find the 
mkdiskimage script from the Syslinux distribution useful.

	-hpa