[syslinux] Gigabyte motherboards and Syslinux

[Rodney Beede]

On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 4:44 PM, H. Peter Anvin <hpa at zytor.com> wrote:
> 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
>
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Sure enough that resolved the problem.  In fact I even selected
"USB-HDD" instead of "USB-ZIP," and it still booted just fine.  I'm
going to file a bug report with Gigabyte about that bios.