Syslinux - Jun 2011 - bad CF disks, etc

hi folks,

I have 3 CF disks, 16M, 512M, 4G, only the 512 is working on my soekris 4801
other 2 show:

Cannot get disk parameters
coming from chain.c32

chain.c32 is not to blame, as bios also gives similar error
> boot 80
No Boot device available, enter monitor.

all 3 CFs are readable/writable on my desktop

after fiddling with various fdisk parameters,
I dd'd the image off the 512, and put it on both the other 2 CFs
but theyre still unbootable.

Any suggestions on how to save these CFs from the scrap heap ?
I considered hacking some printfs into chain.c32, but failure of BIOS
made it seem pointless (though Im prepared to change my mind...)

Any specific param vals to print which might point towards solution ?

tia

On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 17:55, Jim Cromie <jim.cromie at gmail.com>
wrote:
> hi folks,
>
> I have 3 CF disks, 16M, 512M, 4G, only the 512 is working on my soekris
4801
> other 2 show:
>
> Cannot get disk parameters
> coming from chain.c32
>
> chain.c32 is not to blame, as bios also gives similar error
>
>> boot 80
>
> No Boot device available, enter monitor.
>
> all 3 CFs are readable/writable on my desktop
>
> after fiddling with various fdisk parameters,
> I dd'd the image off the 512, and put it on both the other 2 CFs
> but theyre still unbootable.
>
> Any suggestions on how to save these CFs from the scrap heap ?
> I considered hacking some printfs into chain.c32, but failure of BIOS
> made it seem pointless (though Im prepared to change my mind...)
>
> Any specific param vals to print which might point towards solution ?
Use hdt.c32 to show some info.  The quick approach is just launch hdt
as-is then browse the menu.

Alternatively, the minimalist approach is 'hdt.c32 nomenu' followed by
'show disk' to list the basic parameters as observed from the BIOS.

-- 
-Gene