[syslinux] Boot fails in a VMware player VM - syslinux 6.03

[Ady]

> Hi there,
> 
> I failed to boot an installer in a VMware player (Version6.0.3 
> build-1895310)
> using syslinux 6.03, be it off an hybrid ISO image and an USB stick.
> 
> Booting succeeds if the VM is set to use a BIOS firmware with both media,
> but fails using an efi firmware.
> 
> Trying to boot off the ISO image I get an error message "The firmware
>     encountered an unexpected exception"
> 
> Trying to boot off the USB stick I get a black screen.
> 
> In both cases I see in vmplayer*.log:
>     VMHSGetDataFileKey: Could not get the dataFileKey from VMDB
> 
> I have no idea what that means.
> 
> Alas I don't have a real machine with an UEFI firmware to try and see
> if the problem occurs only in a VM (and would be very grateful if
> a kind soul could do that for me).
> 
> I used only official binaries taken directly from the source tarball, as
> shown in attached file. This file and the ISO image are also available
> in http://slint.fr/misc/testing
> 
> In that file you can see:
> . the end of the script used to make the ISO image,
> . the tree of the ISO file,
> . the beginning of /EFI/BOOT/syslinux.cfg,
> . the output of "dumpet -h -i <filename>.iso"
> 
> As you can see, I've put all needed file in /EFI/BOOT, also copied in the
> Fat 12 partition included in /isolinux/efiboot.img
> 
> I can add entries in the boot menu as the boot manager finds the
> file \EFI\BOOT\bootx64.efi, but get the same behavior using these menu
> entries.
> 
> I've seen the same error message in the ML but in a different context.
> 
> I'm a complete newbie and never used syslinux 6.03 before, so I assume
> that's PEBCAK case, any clue appreciated anyway.
> 
> Thanks in advance and best regards,
> Didier
> 

You are probably imitating / following some procedure used by 
Slackware to create EFI-compatible ISO images. The problem, as 
mentioned in a recent email this last week, is the particularities of 
the documents regarding, in this case, grub2 as EFI bootloader (as 
oppose to documents covering EFI bootloaders in general and clearly 
indicating the specifics about one particular bootloader).

Currently, Syslinux is not capable of booting optical media in EFI 
mode. So your VM, when being set to use EFI and this ISO image as 
virtual boot media, will fail.

I don't know how exactly you are building your virtual HDD to boot in 
EFI mode. In /EFI/BOOT/syslinux.cfg, you could:
_ comment out the FONT directive;
_ comment out the DISPLAY directive;
_ comment out the TIMEOUT directive;
_ keep using "PROMPT 1" and _no_ UI directive (as it is already).

If your HDD image and the VM are built adequately for booting in EFI 
mode, then commenting out these directives should at least give you a 
Syslinux "boot:" prompt when booting to the virtual HDD image (in EFI 
mode). If such initial test is successful, then you could move on to 
additional testing steps. If it fails too (i.e. you don"t get to the 
boot prompt), then some additional info would be needed.

If you are really trying to boot your EFI VM with a (either real or 
virtual) USB drive (instead of using a virtual fixed HDD), then some 
additional considerations might be necessary.

Regards,
Ady.