Mailing List Archive: Is There an Alternative to MEMDISK ?

Is There an Alternative to MEMDISK ?

Apr 26, 2007, 8:43 AM

Post #1 of 10 (2772 views)

This isn't an esp urgent issue, but I'd like to use a certain RAM diagnostic (Doc Mem) which I've already posted a note about a couple of months ago. Simply won't work booting the floppy disk image via MEMDISK. In the interim, I've tried to resolve this by changing things on my side. I'm pretty sure it's a XMS incompatibility, as it fails differently depending on which of three diff HIMEM drivers I use. I've even switched from using a Win98 boot floppy image to FreeDOS, but no joy. Whatever the prob is, it's weird bec launching this disk image as the CD bootstrap works flawlessly and has done so for years. But, if you boot the image via MEMDISK, even after making it all the way to the DOS prompt (where supposedly MEMDISK is completely out of the picture), Doc Mem consistently craps out.

I'm about ready to bail on this, but I figured to give it one more try, *if* a different secondary loader is avail. To be sure, this isn't a distress call or bug report, bec at this level of system compatibility, only a couple of bytes in the "wrong" locations can make an otherwise reliable program fail. I persist bec Doc Mem is worth a little "extra-curricular" effort, for its speed advantage over Memtest. But if it's not to be, it's not to be.

By the way, the SYSLINUX/ISOLINUX toolkit rocks. This minor hiccup notwithstanding, it has served well and far less troublesome than the alternatives, GRUB and LILO, particularly in the area of bootstrapping a CD/DVD. TIA....

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Re: Is There an Alternative to MEMDISK ? [ In reply to ]

hpa at zytor

Apr 26, 2007, 9:00 AM

Post #2 of 10 (2721 views)

Permalink

Duke McAllister wrote:
> This isn't an esp urgent issue, but I'd like to use a certain RAM diagnostic (Doc Mem) which I've already posted a note about a couple of months ago. Simply won't work booting the floppy disk image via MEMDISK. In the interim, I've tried to resolve this by changing things on my side. I'm pretty sure it's a XMS incompatibility, as it fails differently depending on which of three diff HIMEM drivers I use. I've even switched from using a Win98 boot floppy image to FreeDOS, but no joy. Whatever the prob is, it's weird bec launching this disk image as the CD bootstrap works flawlessly and has done so for years. But, if you boot the image via MEMDISK, even after making it all the way to the DOS prompt (where supposedly MEMDISK is completely out of the picture), Doc Mem consistently craps out.

MEMDISK isn't out of the picture as long as you're still accessing the
"disk".

It's quite possible Doc Mem overwrites MEMDISK, despite MEMDISK's best
efforts at protecting itself. Other options, of course, is usual (try
raw, bigraw, etc.)

-hpa

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Re: Is There an Alternative to MEMDISK ? [ In reply to ]

warthog19 at eaglescrag

Apr 26, 2007, 10:03 AM

Post #3 of 10 (2720 views)

Permalink

Ummmm I have versions 1.45 and 2.1b working in pxe knife (which uses
syslinux) and they both seem to work (at least under vmware for a quick
test) Also have memtest86 and memtest86+

http://pxeknife.erebor.org

- John 'Warthog9' Hawley

On Thu, 2007-04-26 at 10:43 -0500, Duke McAllister wrote:
> This isn't an esp urgent issue, but I'd like to use a certain RAM diagnostic (Doc Mem) which I've already posted a note about a couple of months ago. Simply won't work booting the floppy disk image via MEMDISK. In the interim, I've tried to resolve this by changing things on my side. I'm pretty sure it's a XMS incompatibility, as it fails differently depending on which of three diff HIMEM drivers I use. I've even switched from using a Win98 boot floppy image to FreeDOS, but no joy. Whatever the prob is, it's weird bec launching this disk image as the CD bootstrap works flawlessly and has done so for years. But, if you boot the image via MEMDISK, even after making it all the way to the DOS prompt (where supposedly MEMDISK is completely out of the picture), Doc Mem consistently craps out.
>
> I'm about ready to bail on this, but I figured to give it one more try, *if* a different secondary loader is avail. To be sure, this isn't a distress call or bug report, bec at this level of system compatibility, only a couple of bytes in the "wrong" locations can make an otherwise reliable program fail. I persist bec Doc Mem is worth a little "extra-curricular" effort, for its speed advantage over Memtest. But if it's not to be, it's not to be.
>
> By the way, the SYSLINUX/ISOLINUX toolkit rocks. This minor hiccup notwithstanding, it has served well and far less troublesome than the alternatives, GRUB and LILO, particularly in the area of bootstrapping a CD/DVD. TIA....
>
> =
> WakeBoards All Brands for Less
> Find H. O. Connelly, OBrien, Gator, CWB, Liquid Force. Same day shipping.
> http://a8-asy.a8ww.net/a8-ads/adftrclick?redirectid=d0e33c81d52ab757ccce77fc047aeeea
>
>

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Re: Is There an Alternative to MEMDISK ? [ In reply to ]

mr-roboto at linuxmail

Apr 26, 2007, 12:51 PM

Post #4 of 10 (2809 views)

Permalink

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>
> To: "Duke McAllister" <mr-roboto@linuxmail.org>
> Subject: Re: [syslinux] Is There an Alternative to MEMDISK ?
> Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2007 09:00:58 -0700

<snip>

> MEMDISK isn't out of the picture as long as you're still accessing the
> "disk".
>
> It's quite possible Doc Mem overwrites MEMDISK, despite MEMDISK's best
> efforts at protecting itself. Other options, of course, is usual (try
> raw, bigraw, etc.)
>
> -hpa
>

Peter: Of course, you're rite. Forgot about that. But WRT raw, bigraw, and safeint: been there done that. No joy....

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Re: Is There an Alternative to MEMDISK ? [ In reply to ]

warthog19 at eaglescrag

Apr 26, 2007, 1:22 PM

Post #5 of 10 (2727 views)

Permalink

On Thu, 2007-04-26 at 14:51 -0500, Duke McAllister wrote:
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>
> > To: "Duke McAllister" <mr-roboto@linuxmail.org>
> > Subject: Re: [syslinux] Is There an Alternative to MEMDISK ?
> > Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2007 09:00:58 -0700
>
> <snip>
>
> > MEMDISK isn't out of the picture as long as you're still accessing the
> > "disk".
> >
> > It's quite possible Doc Mem overwrites MEMDISK, despite MEMDISK's best
> > efforts at protecting itself. Other options, of course, is usual (try
> > raw, bigraw, etc.)
> >
> > -hpa
> >
>
> Peter: Of course, you're rite. Forgot about that. But WRT raw, bigraw, and safeint: been there done that. No joy....
>

I'll mention again I have docmem v1.45a and v2.1b working with pxe
knife, no raw,bigraw,safeint,etc being done so I'm not entirely sure
what I'm doing differently than you but it works.

- John 'Warthog9' Hawley

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Re: Is There an Alternative to MEMDISK ? [ In reply to ]

mr-roboto at linuxmail

Apr 26, 2007, 1:25 PM

Post #6 of 10 (2735 views)

Permalink

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "J.H." <warthog19@eaglescrag.net>
> To: "Duke McAllister" <mr-roboto@linuxmail.org>
> Subject: Re: [syslinux] Is There an Alternative to MEMDISK ?
> Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2007 10:03:53 -0700
>
>
> Ummmm I have versions 1.45 and 2.1b working in pxe knife (which uses
> syslinux) and they both seem to work (at least under vmware for a quick
> test) Also have memtest86 and memtest86+
>
> http://pxeknife.erebor.org
>
> - John 'Warthog9' Hawley
>

ARRGH ! It isn't like it's just me who's been trying to do this and failing ! I have a buddy on a tech forum and we've been around and around, trading ideas on this subj for weeks !

Even though I'm d/l'g your tarball as I type, which version of ISOLINUX/MEMDISK have you been using ? Maybe I can roll back to the exact version of MEMDISK with which you've had success....

IAC, it looks like the mystery just about over. Thanx much....

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Re: Is There an Alternative to MEMDISK ? [ In reply to ]

warthog19 at eaglescrag

Apr 26, 2007, 1:54 PM

Post #7 of 10 (2729 views)

Permalink

On Thu, 2007-04-26 at 15:25 -0500, Duke McAllister wrote:
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "J.H." <warthog19@eaglescrag.net>
> > To: "Duke McAllister" <mr-roboto@linuxmail.org>
> > Subject: Re: [syslinux] Is There an Alternative to MEMDISK ?
> > Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2007 10:03:53 -0700
> >
> >
> > Ummmm I have versions 1.45 and 2.1b working in pxe knife (which uses
> > syslinux) and they both seem to work (at least under vmware for a quick
> > test) Also have memtest86 and memtest86+
> >
> > http://pxeknife.erebor.org
> >
> > - John 'Warthog9' Hawley
> >
>
> ARRGH ! It isn't like it's just me who's been trying to do this and failing ! I have a buddy on a tech forum and we've been around and around, trading ideas on this subj for weeks !
>
> Even though I'm d/l'g your tarball as I type, which version of ISOLINUX/MEMDISK have you been using ? Maybe I can roll back to the exact version of MEMDISK with which you've had success....
>
> IAC, it looks like the mystery just about over. Thanx much....

I just upgraded to syslinux 3.36 in the installation I tested on so it
works there......

That's not saying I might have done something to docmem itself but it's
been a while since I redid those. I'm trying to find a place to
download the latest docmem without registering (know of anyplace so that
I can try it with something newer?)

- John 'Warthog9' Hawley

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Re: Is There an Alternative to MEMDISK ? [ In reply to ]

mr-roboto at linuxmail

Apr 26, 2007, 5:26 PM

Post #8 of 10 (2740 views)

Permalink

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "J.H." <warthog19@eaglescrag.net>
> To: "Duke McAllister" <mr-roboto@linuxmail.org>
> Subject: Re: [syslinux] Is There an Alternative to MEMDISK ?
> Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2007 13:54:11 -0700
>

<snip>

> That's not saying I might have done something to docmem itself but it's
> been a while since I redid those. I'm trying to find a place to
> download the latest docmem without registering (know of anyplace so that
> I can try it with something newer?)
>
> - John 'Warthog9' Hawley

No, sorry. I haven't upgraded in forever, maybe that was yet another mistake on my part as well.

I'll be plenty happy to get 1.45 working. Unless you object, my curr plan is to simply add your docmem disk image to my project and call it a day. I've been working on a ISOLINUX CD/DVD Mini-HOWTO on msfn.org and this is the only part that isn't working.

It's kinda cool. Take a look: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=94398 As straight fwd as SYSLINUX is, there seem to be so few people out there that have real tech skills to d/l the ZIP/tarball and put together a proj in an afternoon. And forget about troubleshooting something like this....

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Re: Is There an Alternative to MEMDISK ? [ In reply to ]

warthog19 at eaglescrag

Apr 26, 2007, 5:44 PM

Post #9 of 10 (2712 views)

Permalink

On Thu, 2007-04-26 at 19:26 -0500, Duke McAllister wrote:
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "J.H." <warthog19@eaglescrag.net>
> > To: "Duke McAllister" <mr-roboto@linuxmail.org>
> > Subject: Re: [syslinux] Is There an Alternative to MEMDISK ?
> > Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2007 13:54:11 -0700
> >
>
> <snip>
>
> > That's not saying I might have done something to docmem itself but it's
> > been a while since I redid those. I'm trying to find a place to
> > download the latest docmem without registering (know of anyplace so that
> > I can try it with something newer?)
> >
> > - John 'Warthog9' Hawley
>
> No, sorry. I haven't upgraded in forever, maybe that was yet another mistake on my part as well.

Bah means I'll have to sign up for an account at some point.

>
> I'll be plenty happy to get 1.45 working. Unless you object, my curr plan is to simply add your docmem disk image to my project and call it a day. I've been working on a ISOLINUX CD/DVD Mini-HOWTO on msfn.org and this is the only part that isn't working.

Only if you don't object to me stealing pieces from you ;-) Though I
think pxe knife is already a little bit further (though the competition
might spur me on to finally get 0.3 out the door) since I have a cd
target as well.

>
> It's kinda cool. Take a look: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=94398 As straight fwd as SYSLINUX is, there seem to be so few people out there that have real tech skills to d/l the ZIP/tarball and put together a proj in an afternoon. And forget about troubleshooting something like this....
>

Doesn't look too bad.

- John 'Warthog9' Hawley

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Re: Is There an Alternative to MEMDISK ? [ In reply to ]

hpa at zytor

Apr 26, 2007, 5:51 PM

Post #10 of 10 (2730 views)

Permalink

Duke McAllister wrote:
>
> It's kinda cool. Take a look: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=94398 As straight fwd as SYSLINUX is, there seem to be so few people out there that have real tech skills to d/l the ZIP/tarball and put together a proj in an afternoon. And forget about troubleshooting something like this....
>

Interesting. There are some bug reports in there that I probably should
look at, in particular the MENU MARGIN/MENU WIDTH issue.

-hpa

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