usb keyboard dying at loader prompt

[Peter Wemm]

On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 12:09 PM, Volker <volker at vwsoft.com> wrote:
> On 11/11/08 19:55, Peter Wemm wrote:
>> ...
>> * There were other consequences of using the partition ID hack - I
>> think I remember it turning off the apic for msdos mode.
>>
>> Your problems may be different, but mine were caused by a BIOS
>> whitelist of MBR partition id's.  What a stupid problem.  On that
>> motherboard I ended up taking the path of least resistance and using
>> the PS/2 adapter plug on the keyboard.
>
> Peter,
>
> very interesting what you've found. That reminds me on some
> investigations I did as I was hunting USB boot device problems.
>
> Some BIOSes do not check the partition (slice) ID but are looking for a
> file system magic. If a FAT filesystem is detected, the BIOS does some
> stupid things (like ignoring the active partition flag and booting the
> FAT slice no matter what you've flagged active). Just an example and
> off-topic to Andriy's keyboard problem.
>
> But when combining that with your findings, it may still be a thing to
> check for... ;)
>
> Volker

I have long since stopped being surprised by what bios writers come up
with.  Or should I say "windows boot loader" instead of bios, because
that is what it seems to have degenerated into these days.

-- 
Peter Wemm - peter at wemm.org; peter at FreeBSD.org; peter at yahoo-inc.com; KI6FJV
"All of this is for nothing if we don't go to the stars" - JMS/B5
"If Java had true garbage collection, most programs would delete
themselves upon execution." -- Robert Sewell