Talk:BIOS update without optical disk - Revision history

Nor: /* Freeze when booting from USB drive */

2009-06-11T19:02:00Z

‎Freeze when booting from USB drive

Newhren at 02:06, 29 May 2009

2009-05-29T02:06:19Z

Newhren: moved "Issues" from the original page

2009-05-29T01:58:18Z

moved "Issues" from the original page

Newhren at 16:13, 24 May 2009

2009-05-24T16:13:37Z

Dag-: /* Freeze when booting from USB drive */

2009-05-24T13:52:46Z

‎Freeze when booting from USB drive

Dag-: /* Freeze when booting from USB drive */

2009-05-24T13:52:13Z

‎Freeze when booting from USB drive

Dag-: /* Freeze when booting from USB drive */

2009-05-24T13:49:17Z

‎Freeze when booting from USB drive

Newhren at 16:23, 16 May 2009

2009-05-16T16:23:36Z

Newhren at 15:48, 16 May 2009

2009-05-16T15:48:38Z

Newhren at 15:23, 16 May 2009

2009-05-16T15:23:40Z

@@ Line 9: / Line 9: @@
 Unfortunately, nothing happens after that. I attempted this with BIOS 3.01 (''6duj30uc.iso'') and BIOS 2.06 (''6duj08uc.iso'', the exact one used in the instructions). ''GRUB'' and ''syslinux'' are both up to date, obtained from the repositories of the recently released Ubuntu 9.04. I also tried the ''isobar32.exe'' from the ''OMIBAR32'' package on the ''SHSUCD'' website, again to no avail (however, the resulting images had a different checksum).
 Any ideas?
 --[[User:Nor|Nor]] 21:26, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
@@ Line 44: / Line 45: @@
 --[[User:newhren|newhren]] 16:04, 24 May UTC 2009 (UTC)
 ==Another error==

@@ Line 45: / Line 45: @@
 --[[User:newhren|newhren]] 16:04, 24 May UTC 2009 (UTC)
-==Issues==
+==Another error==
 For me the attempt to boot results in: Error 28: Selected item cannot fit into memory.
 I've got 4gb of ram, so I doubt that's the problem. the bios img is: [Linux-initrd @ 0xbbc91000, 0x1700000 bytes]
-ls -l /boot
+ ls -l /boot
   -rw-r--r-- 1 root root  24117248 May 28 19:25 bios.img
 The thing is about 24mb, should have no problems being an initrd.
 --dkowis

← Older revision		Revision as of 01:58, 29 May 2009
Line 44:		Line 44:

	--[[User:newhren\|newhren]] 16:04, 24 May UTC 2009 (UTC)		--[[User:newhren\|newhren]] 16:04, 24 May UTC 2009 (UTC)
		+
		+	==Issues==
		+	For me the attempt to boot results in: Error 28: Selected item cannot fit into memory.
		+	I've got 4gb of ram, so I doubt that's the problem. the bios img is: [Linux-initrd @ 0xbbc91000, 0x1700000 bytes]
		+
		+	ls -l /boot
		+	-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 24117248 May 28 19:25 bios.img
		+	The thing is about 24mb, should have no problems being an initrd.
		+	--dkowis

← Older revision		Revision as of 16:13, 24 May 2009
Line 40:		Line 40:

	--[[User:dag-\|dag-]] 15:39, 24 May 2009 (CET)		--[[User:dag-\|dag-]] 15:39, 24 May 2009 (CET)
		+
		+	dag, I think we have some misunderstanding. For me, the "original author" of "BIOS_update_without_optical_disk" page, memdisk works if you boot it from the harddisk, but it fails if you boot it from a USB stick (the payload does not seem to matter, FreeDOS fails too). When you talk about qemu, memdisk boots from the qemu's "harddisk", so there is no disagreement here. Just in case, I compiled the latest memdisk 3.80 from source, and it successfully boots my X200 from the harddisk. And until we here at least one success story about booting memdisk from a USB stick, I would not call it "a buggy BIOS", right now it smells more like "a buggy memdisk" :).
		+
		+	--[[User:newhren\|newhren]] 16:04, 24 May UTC 2009 (UTC)

@@ Line 36: / Line 36: @@
 and (many) older reports:
- 	http://syslinux.zytor.com/archives/2004-January/002999.html
+    http://syslinux.zytor.com/archives/2004-January/002999.html
- 	http://syslinux.zytor.com/archives/2004-October/004099.html
+    http://syslinux.zytor.com/archives/2004-October/004099.html
 --[[User:dag-|dag-]] 15:39, 24 May 2009 (CET)

← Older revision		Revision as of 13:52, 24 May 2009
Line 29:		Line 29:

	We need more people with success stories and fail stories to find the root-cause of this problem. It certainly is a bug in memdisk triggered by 'something', we just have to find what that 'something' is in order to fix it. (Or someone has to send such a device to the syslinux/memdisk developer so he can debug this issue :-))		We need more people with success stories and fail stories to find the root-cause of this problem. It certainly is a bug in memdisk triggered by 'something', we just have to find what that 'something' is in order to fix it. (Or someone has to send such a device to the syslinux/memdisk developer so he can debug this issue :-))
		+
		+	More information from:
		+
		+	http://syslinux.zytor.com/archives/2009-May/012508.html
		+
		+	and (many) older reports:
		+
		+	http://syslinux.zytor.com/archives/2004-January/002999.html
		+	http://syslinux.zytor.com/archives/2004-October/004099.html

	--[[User:dag-\|dag-]] 15:39, 24 May 2009 (CET)		--[[User:dag-\|dag-]] 15:39, 24 May 2009 (CET)

← Older revision		Revision as of 13:49, 24 May 2009
Line 23:		Line 23:

	--[[User:newhren\|newhren]] 14:22, 16 May 2009 (UTC)		--[[User:newhren\|newhren]] 14:22, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
		+
		+	I have found the same problem where memdisk fails to boot an image, whereas qemu has no problem to boot memdisk+image. Other people have reported the same problem with other systems (and this issue is known since at least 2004, but unresolved). I have had success reports from a T400 user, as well as the original author on a X200.
		+
		+	It was believed to be caused by a buggy BIOS, however the X200 and the X200s use the same BIOS. (And even the BIOS on a T400 is not completely different). We also ruled out the memdisk build, so it is related to either a BIOS setting or the hardware configuration of the system.
		+
		+	We need more people with success stories and fail stories to find the root-cause of this problem. It certainly is a bug in memdisk triggered by 'something', we just have to find what that 'something' is in order to fix it. (Or someone has to send such a device to the syslinux/memdisk developer so he can debug this issue :-))
		+
		+	--[[User:dag-\|dag-]] 15:39, 24 May 2009 (CET)

@@ Line 13: / Line 13: @@
 I also had no luck booting memdisk from a USB stick (may be because of the way memdisk works: it hijacks the HD-access interrupt in BIOS. But no-emulation boot of syslinux from a USB stick works OK). As for the different checksums for isobar32.exe and isobar-for-linux -- the images also have different sizes. I found and fixed a bug in the original isobar32.exe that might potentially corrupt the image (instead of "offset"+"size of the first partition" it dumps only "size of the first partition", so if there is a useful info in the last 32 sectors or so -- isobar32.exe will loose it). For now, I would suggest you
-* boot from a linux live-CD, e.g [http://sysresccd.org/ sysresccd] (of course, the whole point is that you dont have an optical drive, but you can easily make a bootable USB stick out of it. Since it uses no-emulation syslinux, it will boot OK).
+* boot from a linux "live-CD", e.g [http://sysresccd.org/ sysresccd] (of course, the whole point is that you dont have an optical drive, but you can easily make a bootable USB stick out of it. Since it uses no-emulation syslinux, it will boot OK).
 * backup (with dd if=/dev/sda) the first 100Mb of your internal harddisk to an external disk (e.g. to the USB stick you are booting from)
-* copy the BIOS image you've got with isobar to your internal harrdisk (dd if=bios.img of=/dev/sda)
+* run "fdisk /dev/sda", delete all partitions, make a new primary partition /dev/sda1 of size 50Mb, format it in ext2 and mount to /media/sda1
 * reboot and update the BIOS
-* reboot from a linux live-CD and restore your first 100Mb (with dd of=/dev/sda)
+* reboot from the linux "live-CD" and restore your first 100Mb (with dd of=/dev/sda)
 --[[User:newhren|newhren]] 14:22, 16 May 2009 (UTC)