Mailing List Archive: memdisk on sony vaio (phoenix bios)

memdisk on sony vaio (phoenix bios)

Jun 29, 2007, 2:47 PM

Post #1 of 3 (5395 views)

hello,

I'm a happy Syslinux user.

I've been learning how to package floppy images to boot from USB flash.
The USB devices seem to work on a huge variety of platforms, especially AMI bios machines.

All the new DELL Inspiron notebooks work flawlessly, happily booting my USB Syslinux setups.

Along comes a new Sony Vaio (VGN-FZ140E) with a Phoenix bios and none of the memdisk floppy images work -- they hang. My linux kernel based images still boot fine.

When this happens, what is a good strategy? So far I've tried:
-- looking for the latest bios (Sony seems to hide the location for this)
-- upgrade to the latest Syslinux (moving from 3.10 on fc5 to 3.51 from zytor)

is there some generic weakness with any Phoenix bios?

thanks for any advice,
Mark

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Re: memdisk on sony vaio (phoenix bios) [ In reply to ]

hpa at zytor

Jun 29, 2007, 3:27 PM

Post #2 of 3 (5090 views)

Permalink

mark pryor wrote:
>
> Along comes a new Sony Vaio (VGN-FZ140E) with a Phoenix bios and none of the memdisk floppy images work -- they hang. My linux kernel based images still boot fine.
>
> When this happens, what is a good strategy? So far I've tried:
> -- looking for the latest bios (Sony seems to hide the location for this)
> -- upgrade to the latest Syslinux (moving from 3.10 on fc5 to 3.51 from zytor)
>
> is there some generic weakness with any Phoenix bios?
>

Given that more than half of all the BIOSes in circulation are Phoenix,
there definitely are -- but that means absolutely nothing.

I haven't gotten any specific information about VGN-FZ140E having
issues; if anyone else has information about that I would appreciate
knowing.

-hpa

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Re: memdisk on sony vaio (phoenix bios) [ In reply to ]

stappers at stappers

Jun 30, 2007, 7:53 AM

Post #3 of 3 (5081 views)

Permalink

Op 29-06-2007 om 18:27 schreef H. Peter Anvin:
> mark pryor wrote:
> >
> > Along comes a new Sony Vaio (VGN-FZ140E) with a Phoenix bios and
> > none of the memdisk floppy images work -- they hang. My linux kernel
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

> > based images still boot fine.
> >
> > When this happens, what is a good strategy? So far I've tried:
> > -- looking for the latest bios (Sony seems to hide the location for this)
> > -- upgrade to the latest Syslinux (moving from 3.10 on fc5 to 3.51 from zytor)
> >
> > is there some generic weakness with any Phoenix bios?
> >
>
> Given that more than half of all the BIOSes in circulation are Phoenix,
> there definitely are -- but that means absolutely nothing.
>
> I haven't gotten any specific information about VGN-FZ140E having
> issues; if anyone else has information about that I would appreciate
> knowing.

Euh, Desmond Boyd is also reporting about "memdisk and floppy access" issues.

/me

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