[syslinux] Useful Info about Dell latitude E5510

[Gene Cumm]

On Thu, Nov 25, 2010 at 15:31, Cockburn, Beau
<beau.cockburn at st-clair.net> wrote:
> Hi Gene,
>
> 1 - Well I could try join the list. :)
>
> 2 - Yes pre-complied 4.03
>
> After reading your comment about the Append hd0, I checked my laptop again and discovered something new myself. It doesn't work if you left USB stick in it. :)  Even thought I didn't include USB as part of boot list. It will give me error "Remove any media and restart..."  So now both HD0 and HD0 0 will work on E5510 as long as you don't stick any USB sticks in it.
>

That gives me some tests to try Monday.  I just hope that the E6410
and E5510 are similar enough in their BIOS.

This sounds to me that there's a bug in the BIOS (main or the PXE
option ROM; both are integrated to the same chip and same upgrade
application).  Is the USB stick bootable?  Have you noticed differing
results with bootable versus non-bootable USB sticks?

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gene Cumm [mailto:gene.cumm at gmail.com]
> Sent: November-24-10 8:53 PM
> To: For discussion of Syslinux and tftp-hpa
> Cc: Cockburn, Beau
> Subject: Re: [syslinux] Useful Info about Dell latitude E5510
>
> On Wed, Nov 24, 2010 at 18:11, Cockburn, Beau
> <beau.cockburn at st-clair.net> wrote:
>> Hi Gene
>
> 1) If you join the list, continuing this conversation would be easier
> in that others will more readily see your replies.
>
> 2) Could you provide version details?  Are you using the pre-compiled
> pxelinux.0 and chain.c32 from the Syslinux 4.03 package?  If not, this
> is probably my first suggestion.  Of course, if you have any other
> modules from Syslinux, they should come from the same package/package
> set.
>
>> Yes that's right "Append HD0" failed. I'm not sure why but it keeps coming back to PXE.
>
> This is indeed interesting.  Using "chain.c32 hd0 0" works while
> "chain.c32 hd0" does not.  (These are just the one-line equivalent of
> the LABEL you're probably using)
>
> "keeps coming back to PXE."?  Do you mean that using "chain.c32 hd0"
> just restarts the PXE boot?  If so, the BIOS is trying to be smart and
> retry the boot rather than fail.
>
> I have access to E6410s at work that I can try to check Monday.
>
>> So I used append hd0 0 and it worked.
>>
>> Beau
>>
>> ****************************
>> Sent from Beast's BlackBerry BOLD.
>> Have a nice BOLD day!
>> Beau Cockburn,
>> Computer Technician, A+
>> SCCDSB - Ursuline College
>> ****************************
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: Geert Stappers <stappers at stappers.nl>
>> To: Gene Cumm <gene.cumm at gmail.com>
>> Cc: Cockburn, Beau
>> Sent: Wed Nov 24 18:06:06 2010
>> Subject: Re: [syslinux] Useful Info about Dell latitude E5510
>>
>> Op 20101124 om 16:53 schreef Gene Cumm:
>>> On Wed, Nov 24, 2010 at 11:19, Cockburn, Beau wrote:
>>> > Hi H. Peter Anvin,
>>> >
>>> > I wanted to thank you for sharing information about PXE, I have used
>>> > this a lot and I wanted to share something that may be important for you
>>> > and your readers.
>>>
>>> I think feedback, especially when a feature is new or there is a
>>> suspected bug, is always appriciated.
>>>
>>> > I have many different Dell model, they all worked well with PXE booting
>>> > however not for E5510. I noticed that using "LocalBoot -1 or 0" doesn't
>>> > work well. What I did use for Latitude E5510 (Bios A06) was same to
>>> > "LOCALBOOT on IBM x3850 X5"
>>> >
>>> > COM32 Chain.c32
>>> > Append hd0 0
>>> >
>>> > Not "Append hd0"
>>>
>>> Does this mean you tried just "APPEND hd0" and it failed or you never
>>> tested this scenario?  The two are supposed to be equivalent.  If you
>>> tested "APPEND hd0" and it didn't work, this is probably a bug.
>>>
>>> > It works and boots to local disk without any problems.
>>>
>>> That's good to know.
>



-- 
-Gene

"No one ever says, 'I can't read that ASCII(plain text) e-mail you sent me.'"