Syslinux - Jun 2007 - memdisk on sony vaio (phoenix bios)

hello,

I'm a happy Syslinux user.

I've been learning how to package floppy images to boot from USB flash.
The USB devices seem to work on a huge variety of platforms, especially AMI bios
machines.

All the new DELL Inspiron notebooks work flawlessly, happily booting my USB
Syslinux setups.

Along comes a new Sony Vaio (VGN-FZ140E) with a Phoenix bios and none of the
memdisk floppy images work -- they hang. My linux kernel based images still boot
fine.

When this happens, what is a good strategy? So far I've tried:
 -- looking for the latest bios (Sony seems to hide the location for this)
 -- upgrade to the latest Syslinux (moving from 3.10 on fc5 to 3.51 from zytor)

is there some generic weakness with any Phoenix bios?

thanks for any advice,
Mark

       
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mark pryor wrote:
> 
> Along comes a new Sony Vaio (VGN-FZ140E) with a Phoenix bios and none of
the memdisk floppy images work -- they hang. My linux kernel based images still
boot fine.
> 
> When this happens, what is a good strategy? So far I've tried:
>  -- looking for the latest bios (Sony seems to hide the location for this)
>  -- upgrade to the latest Syslinux (moving from 3.10 on fc5 to 3.51 from
zytor)
> 
> is there some generic weakness with any Phoenix bios?
> 
Given that more than half of all the BIOSes in circulation are Phoenix, 
there definitely are -- but that means absolutely nothing.

I haven't gotten any specific information about VGN-FZ140E having 
issues; if anyone else has information about that I would appreciate 
knowing.

	-hpa