Anssi Kolehmainen
2006-Oct-27 14:09 UTC
[syslinux] Memdisk doesn't work without floppy drive
Hi, I stumbled on a rather odd problem. A brand new HP Compaq dx2200 computer didn't want to boot up pxelinux+memdisk image. The computer just gave "Disk I/O error" and stopped there. Workaround was rather simple... Just attach regular floppy drive to the motherboard and everything started working fine. I tried with older 2.05 (pxelinux+memdisk) and newer 3.31. Both produced same non-working results when floppy drive was not connected. Changing bios settings (floppy controller enabled/disabled, floppy 1.44/none) didn't help (actually with floppy controller disabled boot failed even with drive connected). Booting works just fine with any other computer (so image & environment is OK). Boot disk is made with Windows 98 boot files. Does anybody have any ideas how to make booting work (without using extra floppy drive)? Hard drive images might work, but boot images must be easily modifiable from Windows XP and last time I checked there was no "loop-device" for Windows. Log of non-working case: Intel UNDI, PXE-2.1 (build 082) Copyright (C) 1997-2000 Intel Corporation For Realtek RTL8139(X)/8130/810X PCI Fast Ethernet Controller v2.17 (051202) [normal booting messages...] Loading pxegiga_av.img Ready. MEMDISK 3.31 2006-09-25 Copyright 2001-2005 H. Peter Anvin e820: 0000000000000000 000000000009f800 1 e820: 00000000000f0000 0000000000010000 2 e820: 00000000fec00000 0000000001400000 2 e820: 00000000e0000000 0000000010000000 2 e820: 000000001bef3000 000000000000d000 3 e820: 000000001bef0000 0000000000003000 4 e820: 000000000009f800 0000000000000800 2 e820: 0000000000100000 000000001bdf0000 1 Ramdisk at 0x1bd68000, length 0x00168000 command line: initrd=pxegiga_av.img BOOT_IMAGE=memdisk Disk is floppy 0, 1440 K, C/H/S = 80/2/18 Total size needed = 1946 bytes, allocating 2K Old dos memory at 0x9ec00 (map says 0x9f800), loading at 0x9e400 1588: 0xffff 15E801: 0x3c00 0x1ad6 INT 13 08: Success, count = 1, BPT = f000:99a9 old: int13 = f0007f80 int15 = f000f859 new: int13 = 9e400008 int15 = 9e400290 Loading boot sector... booting... Disk I/O error Replace the disk, and then press any key Now later at home I realized that I could have taken logs with floppy attached to see if there were any differences but I didn't remember to do that. -- Anssi Kolehmainen
Anssi Kolehmainen wrote:> Hi, > > I stumbled on a rather odd problem. A brand new HP Compaq dx2200 computer > didn't want to boot up pxelinux+memdisk image. The computer just gave "Disk I/O > error" and stopped there. Workaround was rather simple... Just attach regular > floppy drive to the motherboard and everything started working fine. > > I tried with older 2.05 (pxelinux+memdisk) and newer 3.31. Both produced same > non-working results when floppy drive was not connected. Changing bios settings > (floppy controller enabled/disabled, floppy 1.44/none) didn't help (actually > with floppy controller disabled boot failed even with drive connected). Booting > works just fine with any other computer (so image & environment is OK). Boot > disk is made with Windows 98 boot files. > > Does anybody have any ideas how to make booting work (without using extra > floppy drive)? Hard drive images might work, but boot images must be easily > modifiable from Windows XP and last time I checked there was no "loop-device" > for Windows. >INT 13 08: Success, count = 1, BPT = f000:99a9 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ No wonder you're having problems. Your BIOS says there is a floppy drive in the system when there isn't. Did you disable the floppy in the BIOS, or did you just remove the drive? -hpa
Anssi Kolehmainen
2006-Oct-27 18:10 UTC
[syslinux] Memdisk doesn't work without floppy drive
Note to self: remember to use reply to all so replies come to list also :) On Fri, 27 Oct 2006, H. Peter Anvin wrote:> Anssi Kolehmainen wrote: >> Hi, >> >> I stumbled on a rather odd problem. A brand new HP Compaq dx2200 computer >> didn't want to boot up pxelinux+memdisk image. The computer just gave "Disk >> I/O error" and stopped there. Workaround was rather simple... Just attach >> regular floppy drive to the motherboard and everything started working fine. >> >> I tried with older 2.05 (pxelinux+memdisk) and newer 3.31. Both produced >> same non-working results when floppy drive was not connected. Changing bios >> settings (floppy controller enabled/disabled, floppy 1.44/none) didn't help >> (actually with floppy controller disabled boot failed even with drive >> connected). Booting works just fine with any other computer (so image & >> environment is OK). Boot disk is made with Windows 98 boot files. > > INT 13 08: Success, count = 1, BPT = f000:99a9 > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > > No wonder you're having problems. Your BIOS says there is a floppy drive in > the system when there isn't. Did you disable the floppy in the BIOS, or did > you just remove the drive?There are two options in BIOS - Floppy controller [enable / disable] - Floppy 1 [1.44 / none] Setting floppy 1 to none didn't help, though I didn't check what INT 13 08 reported then. Disabling floppy controller didn't help either. One thing I didn't try was setting floppy to none and disabling controller. -- Anssi Kolehmainen
behrad at rayavaran.com
2006-Oct-28 17:42 UTC
[syslinux] Memdisk doesn't work without floppy drive
Oh! So this is the reason our clients give the same error! None of them have any floppy drive. -----Original Message----- From: syslinux-bounces at zytor.com [mailto:syslinux-bounces at zytor.com] On Behalf Of Anssi Kolehmainen Sent: Friday, October 27, 2006 5:39 PM To: syslinux at zytor.com Subject: [syslinux] Memdisk doesn't work without floppy drive Hi, I stumbled on a rather odd problem. A brand new HP Compaq dx2200 computer didn't want to boot up pxelinux+memdisk image. The computer just gave "Disk I/O error" and stopped there. Workaround was rather simple... Just attach regular floppy drive to the motherboard and everything started working fine. I tried with older 2.05 (pxelinux+memdisk) and newer 3.31. Both produced same non-working results when floppy drive was not connected. Changing bios settings (floppy controller enabled/disabled, floppy 1.44/none) didn't help (actually with floppy controller disabled boot failed even with drive connected). Booting works just fine with any other computer (so image & environment is OK). Boot disk is made with Windows 98 boot files. Does anybody have any ideas how to make booting work (without using extra floppy drive)? Hard drive images might work, but boot images must be easily modifiable from Windows XP and last time I checked there was no "loop-device" for Windows. Log of non-working case: Intel UNDI, PXE-2.1 (build 082) Copyright (C) 1997-2000 Intel Corporation For Realtek RTL8139(X)/8130/810X PCI Fast Ethernet Controller v2.17 (051202) [normal booting messages...] Loading pxegiga_av.img Ready. MEMDISK 3.31 2006-09-25 Copyright 2001-2005 H. Peter Anvin e820: 0000000000000000 000000000009f800 1 e820: 00000000000f0000 0000000000010000 2 e820: 00000000fec00000 0000000001400000 2 e820: 00000000e0000000 0000000010000000 2 e820: 000000001bef3000 000000000000d000 3 e820: 000000001bef0000 0000000000003000 4 e820: 000000000009f800 0000000000000800 2 e820: 0000000000100000 000000001bdf0000 1 Ramdisk at 0x1bd68000, length 0x00168000 command line: initrd=pxegiga_av.img BOOT_IMAGE=memdisk Disk is floppy 0, 1440 K, C/H/S = 80/2/18 Total size needed = 1946 bytes, allocating 2K Old dos memory at 0x9ec00 (map says 0x9f800), loading at 0x9e400 1588: 0xffff 15E801: 0x3c00 0x1ad6 INT 13 08: Success, count = 1, BPT = f000:99a9 old: int13 = f0007f80 int15 = f000f859 new: int13 = 9e400008 int15 = 9e400290 Loading boot sector... booting... Disk I/O error Replace the disk, and then press any key Now later at home I realized that I could have taken logs with floppy attached to see if there were any differences but I didn't remember to do that. -- Anssi Kolehmainen _______________________________________________ SYSLINUX mailing list Submissions to SYSLINUX at zytor.com Unsubscribe or set options at: http://www.zytor.com/mailman/listinfo/syslinux Please do not send private replies to mailing list traffic.