[syslinux] extlinux geometry issue

[H. Peter Anvin]

Dick Marinus wrote:
> Hi Peter,
> 
> Thank you for your fast reply and I'm sorry my previous message was a
> complaint. I didn't intended to do so. I'm very happy with Syslinux.
> 
> I couldn't change the partition table of the USB stick, I've tried to do
> so by using the eXpert function of fdisk but when I Wrote the new
> partition table using a different geometry and re-read the partition
> table by restarting fdisk the geometry was restored to H253/S62.
> 
> It would be great if extlinux could report the sectors/heads settings
> which are asked by Syslinux from the BIOS to stdout.
> 

It would be, but it's not possible; at the point where you're seeing the
boot failed message you're seeing that message because *that's the
length of message that fits*.  Adding a binary-to-ascii conversion
routine in the few bytes there are is functionally impossible.

Keep in mind that the geometry fdisk reports has nothing to do with
reality, either on-disk or in-BIOS.  So relying on it is probably not
the right thing to do.  On the other hand, some flash media has been
known to "help" with the geometry (to try to get better alignment) by
clobbering the MBR; that's also rather suboptimal behavior and such
flash media should be considered faulty.

	-hpa

-- 
H. Peter Anvin, Intel Open Source Technology Center
I work for Intel.  I don't speak on their behalf.