[syslinux] USB boot problems on Gigabyte GA-M55Plus-S3G

[Ronald F. Guilmette]

In message <BLU0-SMTP4359BC7EA366B1FB76EA9188BBF0 at phx.gbl>, 
Ady <ady-sf at hotmail.com> wrote:

>I am probably misunderstanding something. We seem to go backwards.

Yes, and ever moreso.

>"Something" changed. If you now cannot see your USB drive in your 
>list (press F12 during POST), there is no point on redacting 
>instructions.

*Now* that I have set up the MBR partition table and the (FAT32) partition
on this USB stick using Gparted (and with the "boot" flag UNchecked in
Gparted), I _am_ able to see the USB stock in the BIOS Boot Priority
list.

>The following conditions are the ones that should give us the higher 
>chances to have your USB drive bootable:
>
>_ Standard MBR;

Check.  (GParted calls is "msdos" partitioning, but I'm sure they mean MBR.)

>_ Only ONE partition;

Check.

>_ The partition formatted as FAT32;

Check.

>_ The partition is marked as "active" (AKA. "boot"able) in the MBR.

See my other comments about this.  The "boot" flag in GParted is
UNchecked, which apparently actually means "bootable".

>Then you need to have the content of the Clonezilla Live ISO (or the 
>zip archive) expanded / extracted / copy (choose your favorite term) 
>in the FAT32 partition.

Yes.  I took the file clonezilla-live-2.2.1-22-amd64.zip, placed in onto
my Windows 7 system, and then had Windows itself open and then extract it
to D:\ which is/was the USB stick.

>Can you confirm this is the current situation?

With the above caveats, yes.

>Can Windows Explorer see this content?

Yes.

>Boot into your BIOS settings. Look for something similar to SATA or 
>IDE or NATIVE or AHCI mode. There might be more than one setting 
>regarding this mode(s). Is it set to something like "IDE compatible", 
>or "AHCI" or "RAID"? Please post your BIOS settings.

You could be a little more specific here.  I have no idea what you are
looking for specifically.  Onboard IDE 1 and 2 are enabled. SATA II RAID
is disabled.  SATA II 1 & 2 are enabled.  "Legacy USB storage detect" is
enabled.

>In your BIOS, is the USB controller enabled? Is USB 2.0 enabled?

Yes.

>In your BIOS, is there some "onboard IDE controller" setting? Is it 
>enabled?

Yes.

>I am not asking to change any particular setting. I just want to 
>understand the current situation.

Yes, and I understand completely.  It is hard to debug something like
this without being physically present.

Please do try to remember hoever that ... as I said earlier... with all
my BIOS setting just as they are, I *was* in fact able to boot Windows 7
from USB... at least part way.  So it isn't as if my BIOS setting are
totally mangled, or else I wouldn't have been able to do that.

>With the USB drive connected, boot the system and use F12 during 
>POST. Can you still see your USB drive listed somewhere? Possibly 
>under HDD or under USB-HDD? Where is it listed?

Yes, it is listed under the Boot Priority list.

>We must regain the possibility to at least *potentially* boot to the 
>USB drive before attempting any additional instructions.

I agree, unfortunately, I must report that things have gone from bad
to worse, to MUCH worse.

Now, with all of the conditions described above in effect, now when I
try to boot to the USB stick my BIOS gets down to the point of printing:

	Boot from CD/DVD :

and then it just chokes, with the cursor blinking in column 1 of the next
following line.

This is with no other drives or sticks of any kind in the system... Just
the 4GB Transcend USB flash stick.

>Please use the above paragraphs / questions so to clarify the current 
>situation. According to your answers, we might know how to go on.

I await your further recommendations.  However this is not looking good
at all.  (And strangely, the more I do things that should cause it to work
better, the less far the booting process actually seems to get.)

Regards,
rfg

P.S.  I may perhaps try a different USB stick, try swaping main memory,
and perhaps even try swaping out my graphics card.  I use only good
quality name brand components, but you never know.