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

[Ady]

> 
> 
> Ady, before responding to you further, I'll ask you now to take onje
> more (fresh) look at this thread that I started over in the GParted
> forums:
> 
>    http://gparted-forum.surf4.info/viewtopic.php?pid=31834
> 
> Please note that I have now followed-up on myself and that I have added
> quite a lot of new & additional information.
> 
> It now appears to me that GParted's reporting of the status of the
> per-partition "bootable" flags may have been right all along, *but*
> if that is true, then the BIOS of my GA-M55Plus-S3G motherboard has
> some *really* serious drain bamage, because if there is a mass storage
> device connected to this motherboard via USB and if that device has
> an MBR partition table and only one partition, and if the "bootable"
> flags for that one partition, as reported by GParted, is *set*, then the
> BIOS on this motherboard will, paradoxically, *not* see the drive in
> question as bootable, and conversely, if the partiton's bootable flag
> is *not* set, then in that case the BIOS *does* see the device as bootable.
> 
> This is clearly bass ackwards, but I have verified this several times
> now, and I believe that the BIOS is just plain wrong, i.e. it is probably
> the one that has things bass-ackwards.  (But this theory still fails to
> explain how my main/regular hard drive for this same desktop system
> came to have the bootable flag on the actual Win7 OS partition UN-set.
> I can assure you that *I* never did anything to set it like that.  I did
> however perform a totally plain vanilla install of Win7 ("retail"
> version) onto this exact drive from an official MS Win7 CD not very
> long ago.
> 
> Separately, having failed, utterly, to get anywhere when I tried to use
> GParted to both (1) install an MBR record and to (2) create the one
> FAT32 partition that we need, I decided to back up and try again to use
> your recommended tool, RUFUS, instead, and see how far I could get with
> that.
> 
> The results were enlightening.  I asked RUFUS to create for me a USB
> stick which was bootable and which contained FreeDOS.  It obliged me.
> I subsequently took the resulting USB stick and tried to boot it on
> both my laptop and my small HTPC system.  In both cases it booted to
> FreeDOS with no problem at all.  I then looked in detail at what RUFUS
> had created for me, using GParted.  Of course, RUFUS had created a MBR
> partition table, and that table, of course, contained only one entry.
> It is the *flags* on that one RUFUS-created partition that I found
> especially interesting.  According to GParted, the partition that RUFUS
> created had two (and only two) partition flags set, i.e. the bootable
> flag and the "LBA" flag.
> 
> Obviously, this is why my ill-advised efforts to create a bootable
> USB stick, starting with GParted, failed.  I had no idea at that
> time that I needed to set _both_ the bootable flag and the (non-
> standard?) "LBA" flag.  But apparently both are vital.  Now I know.
> (Actually, someone else in this thread mentioned "LBA" but I failed
> to properly read those comments.  Sorry.)
> 
> In any case, I'm sure that you would like to know what happend when I
> took my perfectly working perfectly bootable RUFUS-generated FreeDOS
> USB stick and tried to boot it on my problematic GA-M55Plus-S3G system.
> But you could easily predict what happened when I did this, based on
> everything else I've already said.  Remember that RUFUS *does* set the
> bootable flag and that, as I said already, my goofy motherboard refuses
> to see a USB-connected device as being bootable if the device in question
> contains a single partition that *does* have that flag set.
> 
> In short, that perfectly working RUFUS-generated bootable FreeDOS USB
> stick that worked just fine on both my laptop and HTPC failed to boot
> on my (desktop) GA-M55Plus-S3G system, because it had the bootable flag
> set, and in all such cases, this motherboard doesn't even list such
> things in its Boot Priority list.  It is like the device is not even
> there at all!
> 
> (I am still in the process of exchanging e-mails with a tech support
> guy @ Gigabyte, and you can bet your bottom dollar that I will be giving
> him very much of a hard time about this.)
> 
> Anyway, that is the bottom line.  It appears to me that RUFUS isn't
> even using SYSLINUX.  Is that correct?  Regardless of what it uses,
> even it can't/won't generate a USB stick that this motherboard is
> willing to boot, so that fact says to me that this really isn't even a
> SYSLINUX problem... and I probably shouldn't have bothered any of you
> folks with any of this.  My apologies.
> 
> 
> Regards,
> rfg
> 
> 
> P.S.  Just for laughs, I did try taking that perfectly working RUFUS-
> generated FreeDOS USB stick and (using GParted) UN-setting its bootable
> flag, just so that I could try, one last time, to see if maybe that
> was all that might be needed to entice the GA-M55Plus-S3G to boot from
> it.  Then I tried again to boot the GA-M55Plus-S3G from the USB stick.
> This also failed.  (The system freezes just after printing "Boot from
> CD/DVD :") I believe that the reason most probably has something to do
> with that LBA flag.  The BIOS on this brain damaged motherboard probably
> doesn't properly understand that either.  (And actually, it appears,
> based on my googling, that this LBA flag may not be "standardized" in
> any meaningful sense anyway.  So maybe the motherboard isn't in any
> sense obligated to do what RUFUS and/or GParted and/or anybody else
> thinks ought to be done with that flag.)
> 
> Anyway, sorry, but I don't think that I want to work on this problem
> any more.  It isn't fun and it just isn't worth my time.  It is more
> cost effective for me to just replace the motherboard with something
> sane... something that works, both with SYSLINUX and also with RUFUS-
> created sticks.
> 
> If/when I do replace it, I'll be more than happy to ship it to you Ady,
> or anybody else who desires to conduct further tests.
> 
 
@Ronald,

I have to admit I am a little bit frustrated. Are you really 
abandoning the tests?

Your last email mentions several different procedures you tried, but 
not the one I suggested after extracting Clonezilla:
d:
cd d:\utils\win32\
syslinux64.exe --mbr --active --directory /syslinux/ --install d:

By the time I am writing this, the issue about the "LBA" flag has 
already been answered by others. Unfortunately, I wasn't available so 
to answer you before. It would had saved them some time.

Just for generic information, the partition IDs used by MS depend not 
only on the filesystem, but also on which version of DOS/Windows 
supports it. And when I say "supports it", I actually mean the fdisk 
plus format utilities that came with each version. The reasons for 
this are off-topic now.

Similarly to the "LBA" flag (that implies a simple change in the 
partition ID for that filesystem), also a "hidden" flag exists. For 
example, a partition ID of "07" is changed to "17". Removing the 
"hidden" flag means changing back from "17" to "07".

The "boot" flag is different, in the sense that it is independent of 
the partition ID. It is a "field" by itself.

Can any of these flags prevent booting a USB drive? Generally 
speaking, they can.

Can GParted *by itself* make a USB drive bootable? No, it can *not*. 
Not even by changing these flags.

I have no interest in knowing the exact procedure you used with 
GParted on this USB drive. There are so many variables, that 
describing the steps would make it a waste of time.

There is one fact that I know: your USB drive *is* potentially 
bootable in this particular system. I know it because of your own 
emails.

All we need is to use the correct set of files, with the correct 
version of Syslinux, with the correct command line to install 
SYSLINUX in the adequate directory.

Although I have no way to know it for certain, my guess is that when 
you saw something like "Boot from CD/DVD :" was either because the 
code in the USB drive failed to complete the boot process and the 
BIOS tried to boot from the next available device, or because the 
code in the MBR of the USB drive was not a "bootable" code at that 
particular moment.

If you were to follow the instructions I posted in my previous email, 
with Clonezilla files alone and the installation command I provided:
syslinux64.exe --mbr --active --directory /syslinux/ --install d:

and assuming that Syslinux version 6.03-pre1 has no bugs in the 64 
bits Windows-based installer, we might be making actual progress.

Regarding the USB not being listed, it can happen for several 
reasons. I was requesting from you to use F12 from POST, every time. 
If you can't find the specific USB drive the first time, have you 
tried again F2 and looking under a different category? I mean, after 
proceeding with extracting the Clonezilla files and the installation 
command; not after GPArted nor any other. We don't want to mix 
Gparted nor any other partitioning tool, unless we actually need to 
start over with the MBR and the partition filesystem.

FWIW, the command:
syslinux64.exe --mbr --active --directory /syslinux/ --install d:

installs a bootable code in the MBR, marks  the partition as 
"active", installs SYSLINUX to the VBR of the FAT32 partition, and 
copies the bootloader files to the relevant directory, where 
Clonezilla and SYSLINUX expects them.

>From that point we could advance, depending on the result. But you 
reported other procedures instead.

Other members of this mailing list also requested some info about the 
USB drive, its MBR, its partitions... You don't have a Linux OS 
installed in this particular system so to answer to those questions, 
but perhaps you could have the USB drive temporarily connected to 
other system with Linux installed? We don't know.

If you want to re-read my previous email and try again the procedure 
with Clonezilla files and the syslinux64.exe command and let us know 
the result, we might be able to actually solve the issue.

Perhaps this BIOS is indeed buggy, but I know (from the info you 
initially provided in your first email), that it is also possible to 
boot this particular system from this USB drive.

I hope this email encourages you to try the procedure and report 
back.

Regards,
Ady.