[syslinux] Problems booting msdos with memdisk + syslinux on hplaptops

[H. Peter Anvin]

Miller, Shao wrote:
> Good day Larry,
> 
> I've seen HPs with problems booting floppy disk images with memdisk
> before, but the problems were with "superfloppy" images; non-standard
> floppy image sizes.
> 
> You might be interested in trying the memdisk options described in
> section d) of syslinux/doc/memdisk.txt.
> 
> Also, if you are using WinImage, be careful that you didn't manipulate
> the image in such a way as to wreck it (such as changing the boot-sector
> or changing the floppy size).  A good thing to try out if it's not
> booting, is to use a normal DOS boot floppy image with the SYS.COM
> command on it, use a Virtual Machine to boot it with your as-is custom
> floppy image as the second floppy disk, then run the SYS.COM command to
> "transfer the system" to your custom floppy.  For example, your QEmu
> command-line might look like this:
> 
> qemu -fda dos.vfd -fdb myimage.vfd -boot a
> 
> Another test is to see if the floppy image boots non-HP computers.
> 
> I hope this helps!
> 

It would be interesting if someone could write a superfloppy-creation 
script for FreeDOS (or perhaps even some other DOS) that can run under 
Linux.  It shouldn't be too hard to do, one would imagine.

	-hpa