[syslinux] extlinux geometry issue

[H. Peter Anvin]

Dick wrote:
> I mean, extlinux should report the geometry that is being used during an
> "extlinux -i" and maybe only when using a "-v" option?
> 
> Hmm, that clobbering the MBR is happening I guess, maybe extlinux got
> confused by that behaviour.
> 

extlinux normally obtains the geometry at boot time from the BIOS. 
That's the only way to actually know that the geometry you're using 
matches the one that the current BIOS is using.

Unfortunately, your BIOS is broken and just reports "failure" when 
extlinux is querying "what geometry are you using"?  Your BIOS is also 
broken and doesn't support EDD (which doesn't care about geometry) on 
USB devices.  At that point, extlinux does fall back to the geometry 
detected by the Linux kernel, which is usually what fdisk will report as 
well.

	-hpa