Hi,
Dean Graff wrote:> Also, I am trying to use the syntax:
>
> mkdiskimage -z -F -4 binary.img 1000
>
> To get that zip drive geometry for my images and increase the
> portable ness of their boot ability. Will this work, to make the zip
> drive geometry and then dd or cat this to the 'mass storage device'
?
The copy program should not care what is in the image file.
Anyway: The difference between "-z" and "-z -4" is just the
partition
slot that is used to mark a partition starting at LBA 32.
With -4, the first three partition slots in the MBR are zero,
and number 4 contains the partition info.
Without -4, it's the last 3 slots which are zero.
The code of mkdiskimage would also obey the undocumented
options -2 and -3.
I understand that the advise for ZIP-style partitioning is
for old BIOSes which at USB only expect ZIP-drives.
http://www.syslinux.org/doc/usbkey.txt
As always, you will have to test with all machines in reach.
I meanwhile learned that mkdiskimage option -o tells you
what offset to use with mount and syslinux:
offset=$(mkdiskimage -z -F -4 -o binary.img 1000)
mount -o loop,offset="$offset" binary.img /mnt
...
syslinux --offset "$offset" binary.img
So even if it changes its habits with partition start,
this sketch will still work.
Have a nice day :)
Thomas
