Re: [ros-dev] Unable to use FreeLDR

[Timo Kreuzer]

Ros Arm wrote:
>   Hello,
>
>  After the switch in 48124 to PE FreeLDR, I am unable to boot FreeLDR any longer.
>
>  I have tried official, as well as various unofficial freeldr.sys, none worked.
>
>  47892 version works fine, 48124 does not.
>
>  On a 512MB IDE disk, I got the "_" VGA cursor scrolling endlessly/randomly on
> the screen, before even seeing "Loading FreeLDR..."
>
>  With a 1GB SCSI disk, tested also with a 6GB IDE disk, it remains stuck at "Loading
> FreeLDR...".
>     
Did you do a "make install" or did you install from bootcd?
Did you reformat / repartition the disk?
Did you install the VBR?

>   This seems strange: "Now booting from fat
> partitions (looks like that's what sysreg does) works again. It's safe under the
> condition that the cluster size is at least 4352 bytes, which is true for harddisks of
> sizes bigger than 272MB. Booting from smaller fat disks, like floppy breaks when
> freeldr.sys gets fragmented, which should rarely happen."
>     
The FAT16 bootsector is only 512 byes. Too small, so it needs to load
additional code, which is the fathelper code in freeldr.sys. The 1st
bootsector doesn't handle fragmented files, so the fathelper code must
be in the first cluster of freeldr.sys. This is true for disks > 272MB.