I’m trying to get a recent version of haiku to work from usb on my acer aspire one but I can’t. The anyboot image works fine but when I install to another usb drive or SD card so I can have a larger single partition it will not boot. The netbook hangs before it can even display the bios boot selection menu.
In desperation I even tried dumping the image to the destination usb drive and only deleting and recreating he became partition in case I was running into some kind of partitions table creation bug.
I don’t know what it is but if it can lock a bios function that is only trying to look at it its pretty bad.
The partition looks fine. I checked it out in Linux. So… I don’t know. a bootloader issue?
Alright. I have a bit of an update which is also hopefully typed a bit better too. I was on a tablet before and it’s not my best media for understandable typing.
I tried the installed Haiku on the desktop using a card reader. Boot menu came up fine and it booted fine too.
Tried it again on the netbook. Locked up before it could display a bootable device list again.
Tried it via a card reader. Same deal.
Now I know I can boot from SD card. I even had lubuntu running via SD card earlier today.
So there is something about the Haiku bootloader that is installed with an install but not with anyboot that locks my netbook in the BIOS but not my desktop.
I saw somewhere that I can use GRUB as a bootloader instead but the instructions were a little on the old side. Does this still apply because I might have to do that instead.
Well that’s really the thing, isn’t it. It is bootable just not on my netbook. From what works and what doesn’t I’d say the Haiku bootloader just isn’t compatible. But then that would lead me to ask how the live image could boot.
What does makebootable write that is different to what the installer tools can write? Just asking. I’ll try it tomorrow.
Same exact problem here on my Abit IP35. Boots fine from CD or DVD, but system freezes even before it hits the BIOS screen when trying to boot from USB thumbdrive that has the same anyboot image the CD has.
That’s actually a slightly different problem. Admittedly I haven’t tried the image on CD, mostly because I’m down a reliable drive currently. But the anyboot image written using dd works perfectly.
When I use it to create an install on an SD card that install can only boot on the desktop. The netbook does what you are seeing on your IP35.
Is your USB-drive’s partition flagged “Active”? (the flag is visible in drivesetup)
And did you install a boot code in the master boot record ? ( http://starsseed.free.fr/fixmbr.zip )
[quote=starsseed]Is your USB-drive’s partition flagged “Active”? (the flag is visible in drivesetup)
And did you install a boot code in the master boot record ? ( http://starsseed.free.fr/fixmbr.zip )[/quote]
Me? Yes. As I said, boots on one computer and not another, so it is bootable. There is just something different between the anyboot image and the generated install which causes the netbook to lock before it can even display the BIOS boot menu (NOT the Haiku bootloader menu).
[quote=RatCamper][quote=starsseed]Is your USB-drive’s partition flagged “Active”? (the flag is visible in drivesetup)
And did you install a boot code in the master boot record ? ( http://starsseed.free.fr/fixmbr.zip )[/quote]
Me? Yes. As I said, boots on one computer and not another, so it is bootable. There is just something different between the anyboot image and the generated install which causes the netbook to lock before it can even display the BIOS boot menu (NOT the Haiku bootloader menu).[/quote]
I insist :
Do you have :
an Intel partition map (and an active partition) on your USB device (a BFS volume inside a partition inside a partition map inside a device)
or
is it an entire volume? (a BFS volume inside a device)
A bootable device does not necessarily have a partitioning system, but some few BIOSes check for it.
NB : the anyboot image is made accordingly to the option “1”.
#1 absolutely without doubt. I even tried dumping the anyboot image on to the SD card, then just removing the BeFS partition and recreating it to use the full size then installing to that in case there is some partition manager bug at work.
Still have to try that script and bootsector. Out of curiosity I dumped the bootsector of the SD card and compared it to the one in the ZIP. Totally different. But the ASCII near the end of mine confirms it is the Haiku bootblock which I knew anyway.
Just an update. Tried MBR surgery. Didn’t use the script because I did it in Linux. Copied 440 bytes as per the script. Still locks before loading the BIOS boot device selection menu. Currently doing an install to an older Kensington(?) SD card just in case. I used it to install Linux Mint on the desktop a couple of days ago and just confirmed it could boot on the netbook, although it can’t go further then grub because of the Linux install being x64, but I know it works. That’s the important thing.
Sadly it is a much slower card so it’ll be a while before I see the result.
I’m not still installing to that SD card. Just been doing other things. Short answer, didn’t work. It just seems to come down to some strangely specific issue that my netbook’s BIOS has with some versions of the Haiku bootloader. When I have some more time it’ll get sorted somehow.