[Bug 277903] Re: Missing Operating System [message at boot]

[Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre]

** Changed in: syslinux (Ubuntu)
    Milestone: ubuntu-17.03 => ubuntu-17.05

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Title:
  Missing Operating System [message at boot]

Status in Ubuntu CD Images:
  In Progress
Status in syslinux package in Ubuntu:
  In Progress
Status in syslinux source package in Xenial:
  Triaged
Status in syslinux source package in Yakkety:
  Triaged

Bug description:
  [Impact]
  Some buggy BIOSes may fail to properly boot following the chosen boot order, and pass and invalid drive ID to syslinux.

  Known affected systems are:
  - Sony Vaio VGN-FE41Z
  - possibly other systems with a Phoenix BIOS.

  [Test case]
  (requires booting in BIOS mode)
  - Attempt to boot an Ubuntu image on a USB drive on an affected system.
  - Attempt to boot an Ubuntu image on a USB drive on a system that isn't affected by this issue.

  [Regression potential]
  We believe this has a very limited risk of regression. Boot failures may result from changing the code used at early boot for our images, but this should only be adding a hook to force booting on disk 0x80 (first drive) when Ctrl is pressed, and boot normally otherwise. Holding Ctrl while booting is already an accepted "expert" feature to be used in special circumstances.

  Furthermore, this only affects users booting in BIOS mode (no effect
  on UEFI).

  --

  I'm reviving this report since the issue is still present in 14.04 and
  15.10 syslinux, which is used in the various flavour hybrid ISOs, via
  mbr/isohdpfx.{S,bin}

  The same system I originally reported in comment #30 is still
  affected.

  Original upstream discussion (March 2009):
  http://www.syslinux.org/archives/2009-March/012254.html

  Peter reworked the patches in 2009 and created additional MBRs with
  the suffix "_c" (press Ctrl to force disk 0x80) and "_f"
  (unconditionally force disk 0x80).

  See: http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/Mbr

  These images are in the Ubuntu 14.04 package but were removed (in
  Debian) - and no longer in later Ubuntu releases - with:

  syslinux (3:6.03~pre19+dfsg-3) unstable; urgency=low

    * Also skipping isohd*x_{c,f}.bin in syslinux-common.
    ...

   -- Daniel Baumann <daniel.baumann at progress-linux.org>  Sun, 24 Aug
  2014 00:19:38 +0200

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