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

[H. Peter Anvin]

On 01/17/2014 04:36 PM, Ronald F. Guilmette wrote:
> 
> To answer your question...
> 
>     *) with respect to Ultimate Boot CD (5.2.7), the answer is "CHS".
> 
>     *) with respect to OpenELEC (3.2.3, I think), the answer is "CHS".
> 

OK, it is "CHS"... which most likely means this is a geometry problem.
Bleh.  The one thing one can do with these is trying to find the "magic
geometry" that works on that machine, which may be 64/32 for example.
However, in CHS mode 1024x64x32 is only 1 GiB, and you might not be able
to boot from sticks that are bigger than that.

> 
> In any case, other experiments that I have just now done confirm that the
> real controlling factor(s), for this motherboard, are the settings of
> the BIOS's "First Boot Device", "Second Boot Device", and "Third Boot
> Device" parameters.  If there is both a regular (sATA) drive and an even
> potentially/theoretically bootable USB stick installed in the machine...
> even one that has only one partition, and where that partition might NOT
> have the bootable flag set... and if the First, Second, and Third Boot
> Devices are set as follows:
> 
> 	First: CDROM
> 	Second: USB-HDD
> 	Third: Hard Disk
> 
> then (in the absence of any CD/DVD) the BIOS will make an attempt to boot
> from the USB stick, before trying the sATA drive, EVEN IF the USB stick in
> question DOES NOT appear in the Boot Priority list.  And also, as one would
> expect, if the BIOS settings are instead:
> 
> 	First:	CDROM
> 	Second:	Hard disk
> 	Third:	USB-HDD
> 
> then (in the absence of any CD/DVD) then the BIOS will try to boot from the
> sATA Drive first, and will do so, assuming that it comtains something bootable.
> 
> These new findings may shed some additional and fresh light on everything
> that has so far been discussed in this thread.
> 

Ah, it is an Award BIOS isn't it... I remember the Award BIOSes of that
era having that kind of issues.

	-hpa