Syslinux - Jan 2013 - Is it possible with syslinux efi support (6.0) chainload the memdisk and load a DOS Floppy image?

Hello,
 
I'm investigating ways to boot a DOS floppy image stored on the FAT32
EFI System Partition using Syslinux and Memdisk. The system will be
running Win8 using UEFI mode (GPT disks) and secure boot off. Change the
Windows efi boot loader is the easy part...
 
With the current syslinux's alpha version (6.0), is it possible to boot
the syslinux's efi module from the FAT32 EFI System Partition and
chainload memdisk to load a DOS floppy image? All files will be stored
at EFI System Partition.
 
If this have a chance to work, I will grab the source and try to build
it because I cannot find pre-compiled versions of the 6 alpha version.
 
Thank you in advance,
 
Leandro

On 01/17/2013 11:40 AM, Leandro Becker wrote:
> Hello,
>  
> I'm investigating ways to boot a DOS floppy image stored on the FAT32
> EFI System Partition using Syslinux and Memdisk. The system will be
> running Win8 using UEFI mode (GPT disks) and secure boot off. Change the
> Windows efi boot loader is the easy part...
>  
> With the current syslinux's alpha version (6.0), is it possible to boot
> the syslinux's efi module from the FAT32 EFI System Partition and
> chainload memdisk to load a DOS floppy image? All files will be stored
> at EFI System Partition.
>  
> If this have a chance to work, I will grab the source and try to build
> it because I cannot find pre-compiled versions of the 6 alpha version.
>  
The only way you can boot DOS in an EFI environment is to use a
Compatibility Support Module (CSM).  Currently most EFI BIOSes contain a
CSM, which is used to boot in legacy BIOS mode.  There has been some
work into making SeaBIOS an Open Source CSM, but it isn't available yet.

The other option, of course, is to boot a modern OS and run it in a VM.

	-hpa