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

Ronald F. Guilmette rfg at tristatelogic.com
Wed Jan 15 14:41:29 PST 2014


In message <35321.1389823644 at server1.tristatelogic.com>, I wrote:

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

To further clarify, I still do have a pending query queued up (via
e-mail) to the Gigabyte tech support folks.  Their last e-mail to me
said that yes, this board *can* boot *something* from USB, but they
were not specific in saying what it could boot.

I wrote back to them explaining that I have been unable to (fully)
boot Win7... because of the Win7 no-early-USB-driver-loading problem...
and that I have been unable to boot Clonezilla and UBCD and OpenELEC
from USB sticks attached to this system (for reasons that are still
not abundantly clear, at least to me).  I then asked them, quite
pointedly, what specific thing (or things) THEY have been able to
successfully boot via USB with this board.  I am still awating
their response, but so far their silence is deafening.

If and when they (Gigabyte tech support) ever tell me of some package
or product that they claim will in fact boot (via USB) on this board,
then I will independently test their assertions myself, and if I can,
in fact, get whatever they used for testing to boot on this board
(via USB) then I will report back here.  You guys can then tear apart
(and reverse engineer) whatever that bootable thing is and figure out
why it can boot on this board, while nothing else can.

After that, if anyone wants to produce a test image that I can simply
download and directly dd to a USB stick, then I will be happy to test
that too.  However to the best of my knowledge, bits are bits, and if
nobody can produce something that can simply be dd'd to a USB stick
and then booted on this motherboard, then nobody can produce *anything*
that will work with this motherboard.  If any of you folks can produce
something that actually works with this screwy board, then I see no
reason why you shouldn't be able to create a simple, dd-able image from
that thing, whatever it is.  I, as an ordinary end-luser, shouldn't
have to employ specializsed install tools, nor should I have to break
out my hex editor.  Bits are bits, an image is an image, and a USB
stick is a USB stick.  If you can get all of the bits lined up the
way they need to be for this board, then dd should work, but if you
can't, then nothing will.  (That's my opinion, and worth what you
paid for it.)


Regards,
rfg


P.S.  In the thin little hardcopy manual that came packed with this
board, there are numerous screen shots of the various BIOS setup
screens.  In the shots of the screen where you get to select the
1st, 2nd, and 3rd boot devices, an entry for "USB-HDD" is *not*
present among the options.  Such an option *is* however present
among the BIOS setup options on/in my actual board, leading me to
believe that the addition, to the BIOS, of support for booting from
USB was a last minute revision to the BIOS for this board.  Did this
new option receive adequate testing, prior to rollout, by Gigabyte?
I think the evidence that I've already posted about all this speaks
for itself.


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