[syslinux] HP Drive Key Boot Utility works (2.10?), but syslinux 3.71 doesn't

H. Peter Anvin
Thu, 07 Aug 2008 16:38:29 -0000

Alex Dommasch wrote:
>
> SYSLINUX 2.10 2004-06-18  Copyright (C) 1994-2004 H. Peter Anvin
>
> .plus an error message (since I didn't actually have an OS image on the
> stick - which is fine).  What's the difference here?  I've seen it
said
> that booting from USB is a bit of a black art, which I find
> disconcerting.
>
> Out of curiosity, I copied the ldlinux.sys file that 3.71 had installed
> (and I had saved off) over the HP version - when trying to boot with
> that, it says "Boot failed" instead of "Boot error".
But this may be a
> meaningless test - does ldlinux.sys have to be written into specific
> disk blocks?
>

The biggest difference between Syslinux 2.x and Syslinux 3.x is that
Syslinux 3.x supports EBIOS.  Therefore one can make the guess that the
Dell BIOS is broken with regards to EBIOS support (reports presence but
not actually supports.)  This is the second such report I have gotten in
a short amount of time, so I think I need to make an option to disable
the EBIOS support at install time.

	-hpa