Mailing List Archive

Jérôme Poulin wrote:
>
> I would like to add that for every image I tried, I tried to use
> safeint, raw and bigraw, and after hours of trying, I'm giving up. I
> also tried loading it from GRUB Legacy, with the same results. Is it
> my Laptop's BIOS (HP NX6310), USB boot, any idea?
>

Have you tried using syslinux? I really don't have time to second-guess
all the bugs in Grub.

-hpa

_______________________________________________
SYSLINUX mailing list
Submissions to SYSLINUX@zytor.com
Unsubscribe or set options at:
http://www.zytor.com/mailman/listinfo/syslinux
Please do not send private replies to mailing list traffic.

H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> Jérôme Poulin wrote:
>> I would like to add that for every image I tried, I tried to use
>> safeint, raw and bigraw, and after hours of trying, I'm giving up. I
>> also tried loading it from GRUB Legacy, with the same results. Is it
>> my Laptop's BIOS (HP NX6310), USB boot, any idea?
>
> Have you tried using syslinux? I really don't have time to second-guess
> all the bugs in Grub.

That being said, I think what you're seeing is an interaction between
your laptop's USB BIOS and memdisk, but I don't know for sure.

-hpa

_______________________________________________
SYSLINUX mailing list
Submissions to SYSLINUX@zytor.com
Unsubscribe or set options at:
http://www.zytor.com/mailman/listinfo/syslinux
Please do not send private replies to mailing list traffic.

"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com> writes:

> H. Peter Anvin wrote:
>> Jérôme Poulin wrote:
>>> I would like to add that for every image I tried, I tried to use
>>> safeint, raw and bigraw, and after hours of trying, I'm giving up. I
>>> also tried loading it from GRUB Legacy, with the same results. Is it
>>> my Laptop's BIOS (HP NX6310), USB boot, any idea?
>>
>> Have you tried using syslinux? I really don't have time to second-guess
>> all the bugs in Grub.
>
> That being said, I think what you're seeing is an interaction between
> your laptop's USB BIOS and memdisk, but I don't know for sure.

I guess it may be the same problem I hit recently and posted to the
list with subject 'memdisk boot failure'. I still have this problem
and started to suspect it's some kind of geometry problem. Booting in
QEMU gives me a couple of warnings in the FreeDOS (1.1.35, build
2035b-cvs) InitDisk phase:

- InitDiskWARNING: using suspect partition Pri:1 FS 06: with calculated values
0-0-50 instead of 0-1-1
WARNING: using suspect partition Pri:1 FS 06: with calculated values 990-31-63
instead of 1023-23-49
C: HD1, Pri[ 1], CHS= 0-0-50, start= 0 MB, size= 1950 MB

fdisk on the pendrive gives:

Disk /dev/sda: 2045 MB, 2045247488 bytes
24 heads, 49 sectors/track, 3396 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1176 * 512 = 602112 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 3396 1996823+ 6 FAT16

I tried changing the partition Id to 0e, but that didn't help.

minfo from mtools prints this:

device information:
===================
filename="/dev/sda1"
sectors per track: 49
heads: 24
cylinders: 3396

mformat command line: mformat -t 3396 -h 24 -s 49 -H 49 u:

bootsector information
======================
banner:"MTOOL399"
sector size: 512 bytes
cluster size: 64 sectors
reserved (boot) sectors: 1
fats: 2
max available root directory slots: 512
small size: 0 sectors
media descriptor byte: 0xf8
sectors per fat: 244
sectors per track: 49
heads: 24
hidden sectors: 49
big size: 3993647 sectors
physical drive id: 0x0
reserved=0x0
dos4=0x29
serial number: 6766C6CC
disk label="NO NAME "
disk type="FAT16 "

I booted Finnix (small live Linux distro) from the same pendrive,
modprobed edd and checked the int13 info under /sys/firmware/edd. The
default values were 1024/16/63 and the legacy maximums 1023/15/63.
This last piece is the only info which is specific to my BIOS, which
simply freezes booting FreeDOS after printing InitDisk.

I will try booting under other BIOSes as I get to it, but maybe you
can find something in the haystack above. Perhaps it's not even a
memdisk but a DOS bug, which loops encountering some strange artifical
geometry... I don't know.
--
Regards,
Feri.

_______________________________________________
SYSLINUX mailing list
Submissions to SYSLINUX@zytor.com
Unsubscribe or set options at:
http://www.zytor.com/mailman/listinfo/syslinux
Please do not send private replies to mailing list traffic.

Sorry for the delayed response, I though delay were longuer than that
and went to sleep, thanks for the fast response.
I just tried with syslinux with the same results, here is a listing
now that I have two computers to proceed:

After some confusion with forgetting to use 8.3 names, I finally typed:
syslinux: /memdisk safeint initrd=/dos622.img

It started...
Ramdisk at 0x3f5000000
command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/memdisk safeint initrd=/dos622.img
Disk is floppy 0, 1440 K, C/H/S = 80/2/18, EDD off
Using safe INT 15h access to high memory
Total size needed = 2459 bytes, allocating 3K
Old dos memory at 0x9f000 (map saus 0x9f000), loading at 0x9e400
1588: 0xffff 15E801: 0x3c00 0x3e50
INT 13 08: Success, count = 2, BPT = 9f00:0614
old: int13 = 9f00000a int15 = 9f00037c
new: int13 = 9e40000a int15 = 9e40037c
Loading boot sector... booting...

Non-System disk or disk error
Replace and press any key when ready

To setup syslinux I used:
dd if=/dev/sdb of=usb-backup.img bs=1M count=1 # Backed up the old
boot sector and more
mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usb/lexar/p1
cat /usr/lib/syslinux/mbr.img
syslinux /dev/sdb1
umount /mnt/usb/lexar/p1
reboot

I hate DOS :)
Thanks for your help again!

On Jan 11, 2008 5:40 AM, Ferenc Wagner <wferi@niif.hu> wrote:
> "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com> writes:
>
> > H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> >> Jérôme Poulin wrote:
> >>> I would like to add that for every image I tried, I tried to use
> >>> safeint, raw and bigraw, and after hours of trying, I'm giving up. I
> >>> also tried loading it from GRUB Legacy, with the same results. Is it
> >>> my Laptop's BIOS (HP NX6310), USB boot, any idea?
> >>
> >> Have you tried using syslinux? I really don't have time to second-guess
> >> all the bugs in Grub.
> >
> > That being said, I think what you're seeing is an interaction between
> > your laptop's USB BIOS and memdisk, but I don't know for sure.
>
> I guess it may be the same problem I hit recently and posted to the
> list with subject 'memdisk boot failure'. I still have this problem
> and started to suspect it's some kind of geometry problem. Booting in
> QEMU gives me a couple of warnings in the FreeDOS (1.1.35, build
> 2035b-cvs) InitDisk phase:
>
> - InitDiskWARNING: using suspect partition Pri:1 FS 06: with calculated values
> 0-0-50 instead of 0-1-1
> WARNING: using suspect partition Pri:1 FS 06: with calculated values 990-31-63
> instead of 1023-23-49
> C: HD1, Pri[ 1], CHS= 0-0-50, start= 0 MB, size= 1950 MB
>
> fdisk on the pendrive gives:
>
> Disk /dev/sda: 2045 MB, 2045247488 bytes
> 24 heads, 49 sectors/track, 3396 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 1176 * 512 = 602112 bytes
>
> Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
> /dev/sda1 * 1 3396 1996823+ 6 FAT16
>
> I tried changing the partition Id to 0e, but that didn't help.
>
> minfo from mtools prints this:
>
> device information:
> ===================
> filename="/dev/sda1"
> sectors per track: 49
> heads: 24
> cylinders: 3396
>
> mformat command line: mformat -t 3396 -h 24 -s 49 -H 49 u:
>
> bootsector information
> ======================
> banner:"MTOOL399"
> sector size: 512 bytes
> cluster size: 64 sectors
> reserved (boot) sectors: 1
> fats: 2
> max available root directory slots: 512
> small size: 0 sectors
> media descriptor byte: 0xf8
> sectors per fat: 244
> sectors per track: 49
> heads: 24
> hidden sectors: 49
> big size: 3993647 sectors
> physical drive id: 0x0
> reserved=0x0
> dos4=0x29
> serial number: 6766C6CC
> disk label="NO NAME "
> disk type="FAT16 "
>
> I booted Finnix (small live Linux distro) from the same pendrive,
> modprobed edd and checked the int13 info under /sys/firmware/edd. The
> default values were 1024/16/63 and the legacy maximums 1023/15/63.
> This last piece is the only info which is specific to my BIOS, which
> simply freezes booting FreeDOS after printing InitDisk.
>
> I will try booting under other BIOSes as I get to it, but maybe you
> can find something in the haystack above. Perhaps it's not even a
> memdisk but a DOS bug, which loops encountering some strange artifical
> geometry... I don't know.
> --
> Regards,
> Feri.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> SYSLINUX mailing list
> Submissions to SYSLINUX@zytor.com
> Unsubscribe or set options at:
> http://www.zytor.com/mailman/listinfo/syslinux
> Please do not send private replies to mailing list traffic.
>
>

_______________________________________________
SYSLINUX mailing list
Submissions to SYSLINUX@zytor.com
Unsubscribe or set options at:
http://www.zytor.com/mailman/listinfo/syslinux
Please do not send private replies to mailing list traffic.

Jérôme Poulin wrote:
> Sorry for the delayed response, I though delay were longuer than that
> and went to sleep, thanks for the fast response.
> I just tried with syslinux with the same results, here is a listing
> now that I have two computers to proceed:
>
> After some confusion with forgetting to use 8.3 names, I finally typed:
> syslinux: /memdisk safeint initrd=/dos622.img
>
> It started...
> Ramdisk at 0x3f5000000
> command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/memdisk safeint initrd=/dos622.img
> Disk is floppy 0, 1440 K, C/H/S = 80/2/18, EDD off
> Using safe INT 15h access to high memory
> Total size needed = 2459 bytes, allocating 3K
> Old dos memory at 0x9f000 (map saus 0x9f000), loading at 0x9e400
> 1588: 0xffff 15E801: 0x3c00 0x3e50
> INT 13 08: Success, count = 2, BPT = 9f00:0614
> old: int13 = 9f00000a int15 = 9f00037c
> new: int13 = 9e40000a int15 = 9e40037c
> Loading boot sector... booting...
>
> Non-System disk or disk error
> Replace and press any key when ready
>

This means that it successfully loaded the boot sector, but that the
bootsector then failed to load IO.SYS. This means something is going
wrong later in the boot process.

For a hard disk image I would have guessed geometry issues, but for a
floppy image the only geometry used should be the one encoded in the
filesystem image. This is rather puzzling.

-hpa

_______________________________________________
SYSLINUX mailing list
Submissions to SYSLINUX@zytor.com
Unsubscribe or set options at:
http://www.zytor.com/mailman/listinfo/syslinux
Please do not send private replies to mailing list traffic.

> For a hard disk image I would have guessed geometry issues, but for a
> floppy image the only geometry used should be the one encoded in the
> filesystem image. This is rather puzzling.
>

Week end finally, I was able to make some test, booting my USB key
under VMWare using it as a Hard Disk (/dev/sdb), it boots DOS 6.22
correctly! With and without safeint.
However, my Windows ME copy is now blocking at "Starting Windows
Millennium Emergency Boot...", not that I care much about ME, but now
I'm wondering if I made everything OK, if needed I can make an image
copy of my USB key.
The partition I boot from is FAT32, I forgot to mention.

_______________________________________________
SYSLINUX mailing list
Submissions to SYSLINUX@zytor.com
Unsubscribe or set options at:
http://www.zytor.com/mailman/listinfo/syslinux
Please do not send private replies to mailing list traffic.

Jérôme Poulin wrote:
>> For a hard disk image I would have guessed geometry issues, but for a
>> floppy image the only geometry used should be the one encoded in the
>> filesystem image. This is rather puzzling.
>>
>
> Week end finally, I was able to make some test, booting my USB key
> under VMWare using it as a Hard Disk (/dev/sdb), it boots DOS 6.22
> correctly! With and without safeint.
> However, my Windows ME copy is now blocking at "Starting Windows
> Millennium Emergency Boot...", not that I care much about ME, but now
> I'm wondering if I made everything OK, if needed I can make an image
> copy of my USB key.
> The partition I boot from is FAT32, I forgot to mention.
>

WinME (and WinXP, the DOS of which is ME) require "raw", "bigraw" or
possibly "safeint"; this is due to what can best be described as a land
mine in the ME code.

-hpa

_______________________________________________
SYSLINUX mailing list
Submissions to SYSLINUX@zytor.com
Unsubscribe or set options at:
http://www.zytor.com/mailman/listinfo/syslinux
Please do not send private replies to mailing list traffic.

> WinME (and WinXP, the DOS of which is ME) require "raw", "bigraw" or
> possibly "safeint"; this is due to what can best be described as a land
> mine in the ME code.
>

Right, it works with raw/bigraw, not safeint though, however, it still
doesn't help with my laptop not booting them except ME and only with
safeint, every instructions I use is the exact opposite on my laptop
:/ Win ME works with safeint on laptop and not on VM, just like DOS
6.22 works on VM as normal and not at all on laptop.

_______________________________________________
SYSLINUX mailing list
Submissions to SYSLINUX@zytor.com
Unsubscribe or set options at:
http://www.zytor.com/mailman/listinfo/syslinux
Please do not send private replies to mailing list traffic.