Syslinux - May 2005 - USB stick won't boot anymore

Hi all,

  This surely has nothing to do with syslinux, but since many people
here ar eusing USB sticks as booting devices (using syslinux) this is a
good place to ask, I think.

  I have an Apacer 1GB USB stick that was happily booting PCs using
syslinux.  But now, after some tests, it does not anymore.  It does not
even produce some kind of message from syslinux when booting.  Nothing. 
The computer simply hangs there after doing its initial chores.  And the
BIOS settings are OK.  At one point during tests I did a 'dd
if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/sda bs=512 count=1000', maybe that thrashed the USB
stick ?  Anyhow, I tried everything, I think, to make it alive again,
including copying the mbr.bin file on it ('cat mbr.bin > /dev/sda'). 
The procedure to make it boot otherwise stayed the same:

  - make one partition using fdisk
  - make it type 6 
  - make it active
  - use mkdosfs -I to format it
  - copy the initrd.gz file
  - copy a kernel
  - copy an extremly basic syslinux.cfg file
  - unmount it
  - run syslinux against it

  But still, it does no boot any machine.  Has someone ever found the
same situation withan USB stick and what to do ?

  Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Al

lanas wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>  This surely has nothing to do with syslinux, but since many people
>here ar eusing USB sticks as booting devices (using syslinux) this is a
>good place to ask, I think.
>
>  I have an Apacer 1GB USB stick that was happily booting PCs using
>syslinux.  But now, after some tests, it does not anymore.  It does not
>even produce some kind of message from syslinux when booting.  Nothing. 
>The computer simply hangs there after doing its initial chores.  And the
>BIOS settings are OK.  At one point during tests I did a 'dd
>if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/sda bs=512 count=1000', maybe that thrashed the USB
>stick ?  Anyhow, I tried everything, I think, to make it alive again,
>including copying the mbr.bin file on it ('cat mbr.bin >
/dev/sda').
>The procedure to make it boot otherwise stayed the same:
>
>  - make one partition using fdisk
>  - make it type 6 
>  - make it active
>  - use mkdosfs -I to format it
>  - copy the initrd.gz file
>  - copy a kernel
>  - copy an extremly basic syslinux.cfg file
>  - unmount it
>  - run syslinux against it
>
>  But still, it does no boot any machine.  Has someone ever found the
>same situation withan USB stick and what to do ?
>
>  
>
Here is an alternative If you have DOS or Windows 95/98/98SE DOS:

- Configure your BIOS to use the USB stick as a HDD device (if it has 
the option).
- Disable any hard drive systems you have in the system like IDE/SCSI 
(use the BIOS)
- Start the system with a DOS boot disk and with the USB stick in while 
booting
- Use DOS fdisk to create a bootable partition on the USB stick
- Reboot the system with a DOS boot disk and with the USB stick in while 
booting.
- Format the partition (format c: /s)
- Re-enable your regular hard drive system

Now you should be able to boot dos directly from the USB stick.

- If you want syslinux on it, then boot into windows and run the windows 
version of
syslinux on the stick (syslinux e:)

Now syslinux should be able to boot from the USB stick.

Hope this helps,

Quinn