RE: Boot failed
I know you're all very busy. This is very low priority to me, so
answer only when things slow down -- if you have an answer(:>
After an off-list discussion with Adam, I'm trying to work around by
rescue.bin boot problem (don't know if it is a bonafide bug, yet) by
booting from a raw kernel image on /dev/fd0. I started by dd'ing
linux from the rescue.bin, but it doesn't work. If I build a kernel
on another system and dd that one to /dev/fd0, it gets past bootup
into debootstrap.
Why is there a difference?
Back to the linux image from rescue.bin. I looks like the system is
loading fine, i.e., "Loading ...................................."
Then it starts print_all'ing the following:
AX: 0212
BX: 7000 [or whatever]
CX: 5001 [oops blew right past the last cylinder]
DX: 0000
0400 [obviously, given the above.]
The square brackets are my editorial. To my untrained eye, the
syssize test at line 240 of bootsect.S is not working. Is the
bootsect_kludge turned off for linux in rescue.bin?
I should be able to boot the kernel image from rescue.bin, shouldn't
I?
TIA
Rob
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rob Martin [mailto:bmartin@joaptsc.navy.mil]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2001 5:43 PM
> To: debian-boot@lists.debian.org
> Subject: Boot failed
>
>
> Thought you might like to know about a perplexing problem
> I'm having that may provide an opportunity to improve the
> debian boot process.
>
> I have a Potato rescue disk that I have used on many
> installations. I just got two new computers that give me a
> "Boot failed" message. I verified that the disk is still
> good by using it on two other computers (a 486 and a P3).
>
> Successful boots on the computers in question:
> MS-DOS 6.0
> MS-DOS 7.something
> FreeBSD 4.0 install disk
> RedHat 5.something install disk
> raw linux kernel dd'd to /dev/fd0
>
> Unsuccessful boots:
> Debian 2.0 and 2.2
> OpenBSD
>
> From what I can tell from the OpenBSD assembly code, it is
> failing the int 0x13 (function 0x02) call to read in the
> boot image. So mbr passes off to biosboot and biosboot
> barfs trying to read the first sector of the next stage.
> Sorry, but I haven't had a chance to look at the syslinux
> code, so I don't know what's going on there.
>
> I've tried numerous methods of copying the images to
> diskette and I've used numerous diskettes. I've blindly
> ripped out hardware.
>
> The computers are Asus P4B motherboards, running at 1.5 GHz
> with 1 GB ram. The bios is Award Medallion 6.0. I've
> twiddled cmos till I'm sick of it.
>
> Is there a debug version of syslinux that would print the
> AH register upon an unsuccessful int 0x13? That might be helpful.
>
> TIA
> Rob
>
> BTW: In the mean time, is there a quick way to get a
> lilo-based rescue disk. Lilo works, but I want to use Debian.
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