I have a USB flash drive that I'd like to image, and then load that image via pxelinux and memdisk. The flash drive was formatted under Windows 98 SE as FAT, and boots just fine on its own. The PXE boot process gets as far as loading the image via memdisk, but then when the boot process switches over to the RAM disk, it fails: [...PXE diagnostic information...] Loading boot sector...booting... Invalid system disk Replace the disk, and then press any key Aside from re-keying all the information I can see on the PXE client/target identified as "[...PXE diagnostic information...]", is there some way to log this data so that I can cite it here? My DHCP/tftpd server is tftpd32 from tftpd32.jounin.net, running under Windows XP Pro SP3. I'm using a distribution of syslinux v4.0.4 (from which I obtained pxelinux.0 and memdisk) I found via Google (since the syslinux site is down). Regards, Mike
On Fri, Oct 21, 2011 at 23:10, Michael T. Davis <DAVISM at ecr6.ohio-state.edu> wrote:> ? ? ? ?I have a USB flash drive that I'd like to image, and then load that > image via pxelinux and memdisk. ?The flash drive was formatted under > Windows 98 SE as FAT, and boots just fine on its own. ?The PXE boot process > gets as far as loading the image via memdisk, but then when the boot process > switches over to the RAM disk, it fails: > > ?[...PXE diagnostic information...] > ?Loading boot sector...booting... > > ?Invalid system disk > ?Replace the disk, and then press any key > > Aside from re-keying all the information I can see on the PXE client/target > identified as "[...PXE diagnostic information...]", is there some way to log > this data so that I can cite it here? > > ? ? ? ?My DHCP/tftpd server is tftpd32 from tftpd32.jounin.net, running under > Windows XP Pro SP3. ?I'm using a distribution of syslinux v4.0.4 (from which I > obtained pxelinux.0 and memdisk) I found via Google (since the syslinux site > is down). > > Regards, > MikeAre your partition(s) aligned to cylinders on the UFD? I'd consider using fdisk to see what geometry is being used on the UFD then feed that information to MEMDISK (see doc/memdisk.txt for the parameter syntax). -- -Gene
At 08:36:27.26 on 22-OCT-2011 in message <CAD0RxenXopH-Bu_qjascNqYfMCFd=eEKQ_Y5z7U4k9830Pym4w at mail.gmail.com>, Gene Cumm <gene.cumm at gmail.com> wrote:>On Fri, Oct 21, 2011 at 23:10, Michael T. Davis ><DAVISM at ecr6.ohio-state.edu> wrote: >> I have a USB flash drive that I'd like to image, and then load that >>image via pxelinux and memdisk. The flash drive was formatted under >>Windows 98 SE as FAT, and boots just fine on its own. The PXE boot process >>gets as far as loading the image via memdisk, but then when the boot process >>switches over to the RAM disk, it fails: >> >> [...PXE diagnostic information...] >> Loading boot sector...booting... >> >> Invalid system disk >> Replace the disk, and then press any key >> >>Aside from re-keying all the information I can see on the PXE client/target >>identified as "[...PXE diagnostic information...]", is there some way to log >>this data so that I can cite it here? >> >> My DHCP/tftpd server is tftpd32 from tftpd32.jounin.net, running under >>Windows XP Pro SP3. I'm using a distribution of syslinux v4.0.4 (from whichI>>obtained pxelinux.0 and memdisk) I found via Google (since the syslinux site >>is down). >> >>Regards, >>Mike > >Are your partition(s) aligned to cylinders on the UFD? I'd consider >using fdisk to see what geometry is being used on the UFD then feed >that information to MEMDISK (see doc/memdisk.txt for the parameter >syntax).You don't specify, but I suspect you're talking about fdisk from a *ix distribution, right? I have access to CYGWIN and Mac OS X. Will fdisk in either of those environments work? If so, do I just invoke `fdisk <dev>' for the necessary information, then use that for MEMDISK's {c|h|s}=n options? FWIW, I haven't done any special partitioning on the UFD; I just formatted it under Win98 SE and requested installation of system files, so it would boot. As such, I believe there's only one partition. I understand, however, that you're referring to alignment of the partition relative to the cylinders, not the number of partitions. I'm at home without access to the UFD or my test environment over the weekend. I do remember seeing the following during the image load, though: Memdisk: Image seems to have fractional end cylinder I hope to gather what information I can over the weekend and apply it when I return to work on Monday. I appreciate this as a starting point.> >-- >-Gene >Regards, Mike
At 08:42:24.02 on 25-OCT-2011 in message <F0E5F8699DE1364584CDB894E9971355283A1E43 at YRDSB5.YRDSB.YRDSB.NET>, you wrote:>Good day, Michael T. Davis. > >In regards to your query for how to query disk geometry, I'd suggest >installing Syslinux to the USB flash drive's working partition and >running Syslinux' DISK.C32 module from the 'boot:' prompt. You will get >the values for heads and cylinders, then you'll know what to pass to >MEMDISK for the same size of image. > > boot: disk.c32 > DISK 0x80: > C/H/S: 16 heads, 1 cylinders > 63 sectors/track, 1 drives > EDD: ebios=1, EDD version: 30 > 16 heads, 2 cylinders > 0 sectors, 512 bytes/sector, 63 sectors/track > Host bus: ISA, Interface type: ATA > >So: > > LABEL usb_image > KERNEL memdisk > APPEND h=16 c=2 > INITRD usb_image.hdd > >Also, please be sure that you are capturing the entire USB flash device, >and not just the partition, when creating your image.OK, I get this: ** DISK 0x80: C/H/S: 16 heads, 984 cylinders 32 sectors/track, 1 drives EDD: ebios=1, EDD version: 21 16 heads, 984 cylinders 503808 sectors, 512 bytes/sector, 32 sectors/track Host bus: , interface type: ** So: ** LABEL usb KERNEL memdisk APPEND harddisk h=16 c=984 INITRD usb.imz ** Result: ** [...PXE load...] Ramdisk at... Moving compressed data... gzip image: ...: ok command line: harddisk h=16 c=984 initrd=usb.imz boot_image=memdisk Disk is hd0, 251904 K, C/H/S = 984/16/32 (cmd/guess), EDD on, rw [...other data not reporting any problems...] Loading boot sector... booting... Disk I/O error Replace the disk, and then press any key ** I am indeed dealing with an image of the entire disk, not just the partition. There's still the open question I posed in that if the information that's displayed as the PXE process runs on the client/target is useful for presentation here, is there a mechanism for collecting it, aside from me manually re-keying the information by hand?> >- Shao Miller >Regards, Mike