While developing a custom distro based on CentOS we experienced a
"strange" problem: the cd didn't boot on some machines where it
previously did.
We build the cd using this command:
bootimg='isolinux/isolinux.bin'
bootcat='isolinux/boot.cat'
#mkisopts='-r -N -L -d -D -J'
mkisopts='-r -J'
mkisofs $mkisopts \
-V "$distname $distvers" \
-A "$distname created on $today" \
-b "$bootimg" \
-c "$bootcat" \
-no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table \
-x lost+found \
-x CVS \
-o "../smeserver-$distvers".iso \
.
syslinux-2.11-1 from CentOS 4.2
I tried using the isolinux-debug.bin but it never loaded, the cdrom
activity led flashed briefly and the pc booted from hard disk.
Using isoinfo -d we noted that all previously working cd had the boot
catalog stored on sector 171, while the cd that didn't boot had it on 173.
We didn't find a pattern of machines/bios that have this problem, and
only identified sector 173 as problematic.
As a workaround, removing joilet extensions also moves boot.cat on a
different sector and the cd boots.
Do you know of other sectors where boot catalog shouldn't be?
Thanks
Ciao,
Filippo