[syslinux] Boot fails in a VMware player VM - syslinux 6.03
Didier Spaier
didier.spaier at epsm.fr
Mon Nov 10 13:42:09 PST 2014
On 10/11/2014 04:02, Ady wrote:
>
>> 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).
That's right, what I did imitates the procedure used by Slackware that
uses grub2 as EFI 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 assumed that post-precessing the ISO image with "isohybrid -u" (as I do
when using grub2 as EFI bootloader would work the same when using syslinux
as an EFI bootloder.
So that was a wrong assumption... Maybe a warning about that in this
wiki page:
http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/Isohybrid
wouldn't be useless, then...
> 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.
I'm using an hybrid ISO image. I tried to comment out those dierctives
in /EFI/BOOT/syslinux.cfgto no avail: I still get the same error message
at (failed) boot in vmplayer:
"The firmware encountered an unexpected exception"
> 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.
I tried that too with a real USB stick, but still get a black screen
with a message (herd to read as it disappears quicly):
"Failed to read block: ox2"
I'll give more information in my answer to Thomas.
Thanks and best regards,
Didier
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