[syslinux] Useful Info about Dell latitude E5510

Gene Cumm gene.cumm at gmail.com
Tue Nov 30 12:27:11 PST 2010


On Fri, Nov 26, 2010 at 07:25, Gene Cumm <gene.cumm at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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?

What the?  I get some interesting and confusing behavior.  Dell
Latitude E6410 A04, Legacy boot list option (of course; not UEFI).

When booting from PXELINUX 4.03 with a USB drive attached, the USB is
assigned BIOS drive 0x80 while the internal HDD is 0x81, regardless of
if USB boot is enabled or disabled or where in the sequence the USB
boot is placed relative to internal HDD when the SATA controller is in
IRRT or AHCI mode.  When in ATA mode, it's more complex.  I'll report
this later.

The message "Remove any media and restart..." is probably on your UFD.
 I have consistent results from "chain.c32 hd0" versus "chain.c32 hd0
0" on PXELINUX 4.03 (the issue in the initial report).  Using "chain
hd1" boots the HDD fine when assigned to 0x81.

"LOCALBOOT -1" and "LOCALBOOT 0" with or without the UFD just reboots
the system.  Using int18.com also results in a reboot.

Erwan, Pierre: Thanks again for HDT.

-- 
-Gene

>> -----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.




More information about the Syslinux mailing list