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

[Geert Stappers]

Op 2014-01-04 om 20:34 schreef 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.

FWIW: My first check would be  `fdisk -l` on both USB-storage devices.
And would special look for boot-flags on the partitions.


Groeten
Geert Stappers
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