[syslinux] [Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[H. Peter Anvin]

On 08/30/2009 11:44 AM, Mitch Bradley wrote:
> http://advancemame.sourceforge.net/doc-makebootfat.html#7 suggests that
> the USB-ZIP option forces a geometry with 32 sectors and 64 heads.  That
> makes the cylinder size strongly aligned.  To the extent that this and
> other tools follow the convention of aligning partitions on cylinder
> boundaries, it's a start toward making things easy for the wear leveling
> software.
> 
> As has been mentioned, other things need to be aligned too, so
> makebootfat might not be a complete solution, but it isn't "guaranteed
> broken right out of the box".

If it's using a FAT filesystem, it probably is, because the data
structures of FAT, unless explicitly padded for alignment, are pretty
much guaranteed to produce pessimal arrangement.

Zipdrive geometry plus ext2/3/4 should be fine.

	-hpa


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