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

[Ronald F. Guilmette]

In message <BLU0-SMTP47F18ED7837B2CE7C672C88BBE0 at phx.gbl>, 
Ady <ady-sf at hotmail.com> wrote:

>@Ronald,
>
>I have to admit I am a little bit frustrated.

lol

Join the club!

I've invested hours and hours and hours on this little project, and
all I have at the end is a board that _still_ has a brain damaged
BIOS that won't boot things that everything else I own will happily
boot.  I could (and probably should and probably will) replace this
board with a newer and better one for about $55 USD, which is less
than what one single hour of my time is worth.

>Are you really abandoning the tests?

Having asked for help here, I felt obliged to provide much information
in return.  Plus I always like to be supportive of free open software
projects (and have been already, for nearly 25 years).  But there's
got to be a limit.  Unfortunately, I did actually have a few other
projects already on my plate that I needed to get done this lifetime.

>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:

I'm not seeing the point of carrying out this additional experiment.

As I said, I have a perfectly good RUFUS-generated bootable FreeDOS
USB stick.  It boots perfectly in my other systems but doesn't even
show up in the Boot Priority list of the GA-M55PLUS-S3G!  Isn't that
enough evidence, even just all by itself, to convince us all that 
the GA-M55PLUS-S3G BIOS is hopelessly brain damaged?  If not, then
combine it with the fact that I also have Clonezilla *and* UBCD *and*
OpenELEC sticks that also boot just fine everywhere except on the
GA-M55PLUS-S3G, and the verdict is clear, I think.  This board is
worth any more of my time, and most probably isn't worth any more
of your's either.

>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.

It's OK.  I myself actually *had* no question about that LBA flag.
Others raised questions about it, but personally, I have just been
trying to report facts... as many of them as I could gather... in
an effort to try to be responsive to all of the queries that have
been posted from all of you guys who actually work on and understand
all this stuff.  (Boot loaders are *not* a part of *my* forte.  Like
not at all.)   I don't know what the LBA flag is and quite frankly
I don't even care.  I just reported that GParted was saying that a
RUFUS-generated stick had it set to "on", and that my (uneducated)
guess was that this was important and significant.

>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.

Thank you.  Yes, I gleened from earlier posts in this thread that
there are different system ID byte values, depending on whether the
partition contents should be addressed using LBA or not.  (Not that
I even understand much of this LBA versus C/H/S stuff.  I don't.
I only understand this stuff well enough, in general, to try to
personally stay well and far away from dealing with it all, as much
as I can, leaving it all instead to folks like the smart people on
this list, who understand it all far better than I ever will.)

>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.

I agree that *in theory* (since I can at least partially boot Win7
from/via USB) there is a possibility that I could take some USB
device, produced by some nice tool like RUFUS... or in some other
manner... and fiddle and diddle it, for a little while or a long
while, in one step or maybe several, and that I might eventually
get it to boot on/with this motherboard.  But what's the point?
It will never just work "out of the box".

>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.

Again I ask "What is the point?"

Are people going to start releasing special releases of Clonezilla,
UBCD, and OpenELEC... not to mention Rufus... that have been tailored
specially so that they will work on this one brain dead motherboard?
I don't think so.

>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 *have* managed, thus far, to extract at least a little relevant
information from Gigabyte tech support about all this.  The last
message I got from them was completely clear and unambiguous.
If and only if a device appears in the Boot Priority list (reached
via the BIOS Setup screens which are in turn reached via DEL during
POST) then the board can potentially boot from it... assuming all
else is well, e.g. that it actually contains something bootable.
If however a given device DOES NOT appear in the BIOS Boot Priority
list, then it CANNOT be booted from.  Period.

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

Thank you for your kindness and efforts, but no, not really.  It just
doesn't appear to be worth any further investment of time at this point.

Why don't you talk to that Rufus guy?  If he produces a new release
which he thinks might (out-of-the-box and with no fiddling, or hex
editing, or any such stuff) allow me to boot to FreeDOS from a USB
using this motherboard, I'll be more than happy to download it and
give it a try.  In the absence of that, my offer to donate this board
to you (as soon as I get a replacement) stands.  You can then do as
you wish with it to your heart's content.


Regards,
rfg