[syslinux] After USB boot problems on Gigabyte GA-M55Plus-S3G

Rich Mahn
2014-01-22T15:20:42Z

> > Both sticks show very unusual factors for heads and sectors
> > which are hardly intentional. If BIOS gets confused like fdisk,
> > then the failure to find files is quite plausible.
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Could you please exercise what is described for Linux in
> >   http://www.syslinux.org/doc/usbkey.txt
> > and check whether
> >   mkdiskimage -4 /dev/sda 0 64 32
> > prepares a problematic stick for a normal installation of
> > Clonezilla, which then boots ?
> >
>
> I have to disagree., at least at this point.
>

I have to disagree with the disagree, at least so some extent.  I find
mkdiskimage to be an extremely useful and compact tool to do what
otherwise takes several potentially more error-prone steps.

I actually use different parameters:
	mkdiskimage -4 -z -F /dev/sdX
which is the same thing as above except using FAT32 instead of FAT16.

This has worked flawlessly with various USB thumb drives from 256 MiB to
32 GiB in size on PCs with dozens of different motherboards from about a
half-dozen different vendors.  (Actually the PCs only have one MB
each--it's the aggregation that has the dozens of MBs).

On the larger sticks I carry several versions of a number of
distributions--Clonezilla, AVG, GParted, Parted Magic, System Rescue CD,
Fedora, Centos, and several other diagnostic tools.  This gives me most
of the tools I might need, all on one or two USB sticks.

Adapting these distributions to this type of USB stick has become almost
trivial with Syslinux 6.02.  If it is of interest, I'll be glad to
provide details and step-by-step instructions.  Perhaps this type of
information could be useful somewhere in the wiki.  I'm not much of a
writer, but I'm good at step-by-step instructions.