[syslinux] Booting problem with memdisk + Thinkpad + USB

Jan Ploski jpl at plosquare.com
Sun Jul 12 14:25:56 PDT 2009


Rance Hall wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 12, 2009 at 3:08 PM, Jan Ploski<jpl at plosquare.com> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I encountered a booting problem with memdisk 2.83, USB and IBM Thinkpad T61,
>> apparently the same issue as described here:
>>
>> http://syslinux.zytor.com/archives/2008-April/009850.html
>>
>> The boot process always stops after "Loading boot sector... booting...".
>> With debug tracers enabled, the last few output lines are:
>>
>> Loading boot sector... FR<p>Dbooting...
>> FR<p>DFR<p>DFR<p>DFR<p>DFR<p>DFR<p><DFR<p>DFR<p>DFR<p>DFR<p>DFR<p>DFR<p>DFR<p>DFR
>> <p>DFR<p>DFR<p>DFR<p>DFR<p>DFR<p>DFR<p>DFR<p>DFR<p>DFR<p>DFR<p>DFR<p>DFGDFIDFD
>>
>> A friend who uses memdisk more frequently also reported seeing the same
>> symptoms (hanging after "Loading boot sector...") with desktops and even
>> when booting from CDs.
>>
>> I can see in source code that the 'I' tracer is output when the Invalid_jump
>> branch is taken. Simply commenting out the jump instruction didn't fix the
>> problem. Also, I didn't manage to capture the tracer output for comparison
>> on another (Dell) notebook where memdisk works just fine using the same
>> image because it disappeared from the screen too quickly.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Jan Ploski
> 
> Jan:
> 
> That model thinkpad comes with a securitychip that can be
> enabled/disabled in the bios.  I finally had to disable it on my wifes
> thinkpad (different model, same problem) because of wierd things.
> Disabling the chip in bios fixed them all.
> 
> I'm just wondering if that explains your error.  that security chip is
> the main difference between the thinkpad that doesnt work, and the
> dell that does.
> 
> I hope that fixes it.

Rance,

Thanks for the tip. I checked the BIOS settings: the security chip is 
disabled ("hidden and not functional"). I should also add that neither 
adding 'raw' nor 'bigraw' to the kernel command line helped (although 
the tracers contained <r> instead of <p> then).

Regards,
Jan Ploski




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