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

[Ronald F. Guilmette]

In message <20140120102542.GV2170 at gpm.stappers.nl>, 
Geert Stappers <stappers at stappers.nl> wrote:

>My message is that getting a syslinux wiki account is possible.

I would be happy to help improve the Wiki, however I am most definitely
not the person to do this for one simple reason:  I still have no clear
understanding of either (a) what exactly went wrong (that caused me to
come here in the first place) _or_ (b) how it ultimately got "fixed".

One tiny and perhaps inconsequential part of the whole mess I do under-
stand: All things considered, it is better that stand-alone bootable
things (of the type that can be put onto a USB sticks) set the "bootable"
flag on the partition they live in.  (Apparently, this is not universally
done, and for some motherboards, e.g. mine, this can result in end-user
confusion, even though it apparently does not impede actual booting.)

With respect to all of the actually important stuff however, I may have
missed it all, but I don't recall having read or seen an explanation of
what Ady & everybody else finally figured out about all this.  What is
the answer, in the end?  I did get the part about how (for my board,
at least) tweeking some of the info within the relevant MBR partition
table entry so as to cause it to indicate/suggest LBA addressing,
rather than CHS style addressing, is one part of what finally yielded
success.  But what are the other parts?  I personally am still totally
in the dark.  (This is probably my fault for not paying enough attention.)

All I know is that in the last test that Ady had me run, he had me
creating a sort of Frankenstein-like hybrid of (a) his prior "Hello
world" test image and (b) the 2.2.1 Clonezilla release.  Beyond that,
I personally don't know *any* of the technical or functional details
relating to _either_ of those two things, so I don't have any idea
whatsoever about either (a) why Ady wanted me to do that last test or
(b) why it seemed to boot Clonezilla OK.

Is setting the partition type byte (to a value which is widely construed
to specify/request/demand LBA rather than CHS addressing) the one and
only tweek needed in order to get Syslinux-based stuff booting properly
on this motherboard?  If not, then what else, exactly, is required?


Regards,
rfg