[syslinux] Dell machine boots a Windows formatted FAT16 USB drive not a Ubuntu formatted FAT16 drive.

[Ady]

> Hi All,
> First post and hopefully someone can steer me in 
> the right direction for this problem. I did a bit 
> of googling and found some hints but nothing concrete.
> 
> We are using Syslinux and a FAT32 USB thumb drive 
> (single partition) to boot a customized Debian OS 
> which works very well with newer motherboards. 
> However we have a few older Dell machines that 
> simply hangs when trying to boot using the same 
> drive. Someone suggested that we try FAT16 
> filesystem which I created using Ubuntu disk 
> utility and as well as mkdosfs command line 
> utility. I reduced the partition size to 1 GB for 
> FAT16. Neither worked. However a colleague created 
> a FAT16 drive on a Windows machine and that booted 
> just fine on the Dell.
> 
> So my question is there some specific drive 
> parameters I should be selecting when creating a 
> FAT16 USB thumb drive that is acceptable to the 
> old Dell machines?
> 
> Any help is always appreciated.
> 
> Mark
> 
 
I don't know the answer, but here are some points.

_ You mention at least 2 different USB drives, each formatted under 2 
different OS. What happens when you reverse them, e.g. taking the USB 
drive that was previously formatted under Windows and now formatting 
it under Linux?

_ Are both USB drives of the same brand? Are both of approximately 
the same device size? Are the partitions the same size?

_ Are you using the latest BIOS version available?

_ Are there any updates available for your mkdosfs (even upstream)? 
Have you tested both, dosfstools and mtools (mformat)?

_ Are both USB drives seen by the BIOS in the same exact way? Are 
both seen as USB-HDD? Or both as HDD? Or...

_ Are both USB drives using the same exact Syslinux version?

_ How are you installing / writing Syslinux on the USB drive? Are 
both drives using the same procedure?

_ Are both USB drives using the same CHS values? Is the BIOS 
recognizing the same CHS values for both drives? Is the partition 
table using the same CHS values? Is the partition boot sector using 
the same CHS values?

_ Are you using the same MBR boot code for both USB drives?

_ Which partition ID is used in each partition table? Are both the 
same?

_ Are both respective booting partitions set as "bootable / active"?

_ Are both USB drives using the same partition alignments (both at 
start and end of each partition)?

_ Using minfo (mtools) or equivalent, are all the fs values the same?

_ Are you able to replicate this same situation in other (non-Dell?) 
systems / BIOS?


There are additional points of comparison, but those would probably 
be the first ones to check.

HTH,
Ady.