[syslinux] Problems booting msdos with memdisk + syslinux on hplaptops

Miller, Shao
Fri, 27 Mar 2009 13:05:32 -0000

Good day Larry,

I've seen HPs with problems booting floppy disk images with memdisk
before, but the problems were with "superfloppy" images; non-standard
floppy image sizes.

You might be interested in trying the memdisk options described in
section d) of syslinux/doc/memdisk.txt.

Also, if you are using WinImage, be careful that you didn't manipulate
the image in such a way as to wreck it (such as changing the boot-sector
or changing the floppy size).  A good thing to try out if it's not
booting, is to use a normal DOS boot floppy image with the SYS.COM
command on it, use a Virtual Machine to boot it with your as-is custom
floppy image as the second floppy disk, then run the SYS.COM command to
"transfer the system" to your custom floppy.  For example, your QEmu
command-line might look like this:

qemu -fda dos.vfd -fdb myimage.vfd -boot a

Another test is to see if the floppy image boots non-HP computers.

I hope this helps!

- Shao Miller

-----Original Message-----
From: syslinux-bounces at zytor.com [mailto:syslinux-bounces at zytor.com] On
Behalf Of Larry
Sent: Thursday, March 12, 2009 02:08
To: syslinux at zytor.com
Subject: [syslinux] Problems booting msdos with memdisk + syslinux on
hplaptops

I have many hp laptops that boot msdos with memdisk + pxelinux
perfectly. However, I recently have the need to usb boot msdos with
syslinux. And memdisk. When the dos Image loads I get
"loading bootsector..." and then it halts. Sometimes I can get
"starting ms-dos" but freezes as well. I'm trying to boot clean
msdos
floppy image  created with winimage. I'm using the latest 3.73 memdisk
and syslinux.

Any suggestions?
Sent from IP

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