[syslinux] MEMDISK issues and Dell OptiPlex and Latitude systems

[Jason Vasquez]

Hello all. Again I call upon the greats of this mailing list to help me with an issue related to MEMDISK - notably when paired with various Dell OptiPlex and Latitude systems.

The issue presented itself sometime ago and I best dealt with it by remaining with version 3.83 of the SYSLINUX package. But valuing the improved changes fostered by newer versions, I would prefer to move forward with current versions.

Though I have recently posted this issue to the mailing list, new events have exacerbated my PXE-booting and MEMDISK troubles. Previously, when PXE-booting a PC DOS/Ghost-client hard disk image, a "We lost the last drive in our class of drives." error would occur and Ghost would be unable to see the internal disk. Well, the same error message and results occur when PXE-booting and MEMDISK-loading a FreeDOS hard disk image.

MEMDISK 3.83 (and previous) versions work properly, but any version beyond the 3.83 (including the 4.x series) do not work so properly. I thought this occurrence was unique to OptiPlex GX280 and GX620 systems, but a number of Latitude notebooks have joined the party. 

Below is the rundown of systems and MEMDISK results.

initrd image: c.img
(A FreeDOS image) extracted from the following archive:
http://bochs.sourceforge.net/guestos/freedos-img.tar.gz

------------------------------------------------------------------
MEMDISK 3.83 and 4.03 both detect internal SATA drive
------------------------------------------------------------------
OptiPlex 980 BIOS A05,
Intel Corporation 82578DM Gigabit Network Connection [8086:10ef] (rev 05)

OptiPlex 780 BIOS A05,
Intel Corporation 82567LM-3 Gigabit Network Connection [8086:10de] (rev 02)

OptiPlex 755 BIOS A17
Intel Corporation 82566DM-2 Gigabit Network Connection [8086:10bd] (rev 02)

------------------------------------------------------------------
MEMDISK 4.03 does not detect internal SATA drive
Note the message: "We lost the last drive in our class of drives."
------------------------------------------------------------------
OptiPlex GX620 BIOS A08,
Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5751 Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express [14e4:1677] (rev 01)

OptiPlex GX280 BIOS A08,
Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5751 Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express [14e4:1677] (rev 01)

Latitude E6400 A27,
Intel Corporation 82567LM Gigabit Network Connection [8086:10f5] (rev 03)
Intel Corporation WiMAX/WiFi Link 5150 [8086:423c]

Latitude  D820 A09,
Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5752 Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express [14e4:1600] (rev 02)
Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG [Golan] Network Connection [8086:4222] (rev 02)

Latitude  D810 A05, (PATA drive)
Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5751 Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express [14e4:1677] (rev 01)
Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 2200BG [Calexico2] Network Connection [8086:4220] (rev 05)

Latitude  D505 A11, (PATA drive)
Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller [14e4:4320] (rev 03)
Intel Corporation 82801DB PRO/100 VE (MOB) Ethernet Controller [8086:103d] (rev 81)

If someone is curious to recreate this error condition, the disk image is available at the aforementioned URL. I hope having an image available helps for those with like test systems. I'd love to hear of the results.

Regards.