Syslinux - Aug 2005 - Can't boot Syslinux from HD directly. Can indirect ly?

Hi!
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Nazo [mailto:nazosan at gmail.com] 
> Sent: Tuesday, August 02, 2005 1:37 AM
> To: syslinux at zytor.com
> Subject: Re: [syslinux] Can't boot Syslinux from HD directly. 
> Can indirectly?
> 
> 
> On 8/1/05, H. Peter Anvin <hpa at zytor.com> wrote:
> > Nazo wrote:
> > > I've installed Syslinux on a somewhat old system.  The 
> motherboard 
> > > is based on an Intel 440GX chipset (specifically it's the 
> Supermicro 
> > > P6DGE if that means anything.)  The harddrive has been 
> split up into 
> > > partitions of one hidden FAT16 (marked as active) to 
> which syslinux 
> > > is installed (hda1), one normal FAT32 which has windows and dos 
> > > (hda2.) It also has an extended partition containing an EXT2 and 
> > > linux swap partition, however, it didn't originally have 
> these when 
> > > I first saw the problem so I know they aren't the issue.
> > >
> > > The issue is that for some reason it won't boot the harddrive
> > > directly.  It just freezes every time.  It shows the word 
> SYSLINUX, 
> > > the version (3.09) and date (2005-06-17) but stops there.  Never 
> > > clears the screen or any of that either.  I have installed it in 
> > > safe "slow" mode, but, what's more importantly,
this same setup
> > > worked perfectly fine for several weeks on the previous 
> board I had 
> > > in that system, an Asus KN-97-X (Intel 440FX.)  This leads me to 
> > > believe it's something weird to do with the bios.
> > >
> > > Currently I'm having to boot my rescue disc using 
> isolinux and load 
> > > chain.c32 to manually boot that partition for it to work. 
>  When I do 
> > > this, it boots without a problem.  I'd say definitely 
> bios, however, 
> > > before this latest time I've installed syslinux on there, 
> it was set 
> > > to boot partition "0" (aka the MBR!)  As far as I can
tell, it
> > > doesn't cross the 1024 boundary (I haven't the vaguest 
> idea how to 
> > > verify this, but, the FAT16 partition is the first 510 or 
> so MB of a 
> > > 60GB drive, so it's hard to imagine it would do that.)
> > >
> > > Any idea what's going on?  Is it somehow still past the 1024 
> > > boundary?  Any way to verify short of knowing how to add up those
> > > numbers on the drive (which is such a pain to get to 
> right now I'm 
> > > not sure it's worth the trouble.)
> > >
> > 
> > Do you know if this problem goes away with an older version 
> of syslinux?
> >   There seems to be some issues with newer syslinuxes on some old 
> > hardware, which is still unresolved.
> > 
> >         -hpa
> > 
> > 
> 
> 
> Yikes.  I had just assumed later version = greater 
> compatibility and gone straight for the latest...  Well, I 
> had to go all the way back to 2.13 (even 3.00 didn't work,) 
> but, it seems to be working alright now.  I guess that it 
> doesn't make much difference if I have to use an old version 
> in this case, it seems to have all the features I need for 
> this particular setup.  It's strange that I was ok with the 
> latest version on that older KN-97 though.  Still, I can 
> understand better Asus compatibility than Supermicro (who 
> apparently are actually still around -- I found a website and 
> it still has archives for the old products even -- just they 
> aren't exactly concentrating on many desktop systems anymore.)
H. Peter would appreciate if you could detect where it did got broken,
Testing all the releases and the pre also...

Luis Correia

Luis.F.Correia wrote:
>>
>>Yikes.  I had just assumed later version = greater 
>>compatibility and gone straight for the latest...  Well, I 
>>had to go all the way back to 2.13 (even 3.00 didn't work,) 
>>but, it seems to be working alright now.  I guess that it 
>>doesn't make much difference if I have to use an old version 
>>in this case, it seems to have all the features I need for 
>>this particular setup.  It's strange that I was ok with the 
>>latest version on that older KN-97 though.  Still, I can 
>>understand better Asus compatibility than Supermicro (who 
>>apparently are actually still around -- I found a website and 
>>it still has archives for the old products even -- just they 
>>aren't exactly concentrating on many desktop systems anymore.)
> 
> H. Peter would appreciate if you could detect where it did got broken,
> Testing all the releases and the pre also...
> 
Yes, please.  This has seemed to be a *damned* elusive bug, and I'm 
utterly puzzled by it.

	-hpa