[Sugar-devel] Unbootable machine

[Dan Krejsa]

Hi Jonas,

On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 6:21 AM, Jonas Smedegaard <dr at jones.dk> wrote:

> On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 07:36:05AM -0400, Luke Faraone wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 07:25, Jonas Smedegaard <dr at jones.dk> wrote:
>>
>>  makebootfat not only formats with disk geometry that *is* right, but also
>>> use a handcrafted MBR which has a higher chance of *looking* right by
>>> various BIOSes - both when looking for USB-FDD, USB-ZIP and USB-HDD.
>>>
>>
>> Now, by *right*, do we mean not only that but also something that meets
>> the
>> criteria of
>>
>> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/How_to_Damage_a_FLASH_Storage_Device#How_to_win(without<http://wiki.laptop.org/go/How_to_Damage_a_FLASH_Storage_Device#How_to_win%28without>
>> the problems caused by
>>
>> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/How_to_Damage_a_FLASH_Storage_Device#Screwed-up_formatting
>> )?
>>
>>
>> I'm not too familiar with how USB flash works, so I don't know if
>> USB-{FDD,
>> ZIP, HDD} layouts are compatible with the layout you'd want to minimize
>> wear.
>>
>
> Please read the following:
> http://advancemame.sourceforge.net/doc-makebootfat.html#7
>
> If you, after reading above, still feel that your questions are relevant
> (hint: I don't), then please elaborate on them.
>

Well, to begin with, neither the makebootfat documentation nor the source
code seem
to make any mention of aligning disk and filesystem data structures
consistent with the erase block
size for the flash on a particular USB disk.

Now, perhaps this is _usually_ an implicit result of the FAT cluster sizes,
the geometry chosen, and
makefatboot's default layout, but it is certainly not explicit.

- Dan
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