--- /dev/null
+#ifndef _ASM_X86_BOOTPARAM_UTILS_H
+#define _ASM_X86_BOOTPARAM_UTILS_H
+
+#include <asm/bootparam.h>
+
+/*
+ * This file is included from multiple environments.  Do not
+ * add completing #includes to make it standalone.
+ */
+
+/*
+ * Deal with bootloaders which fail to initialize unknown fields in
+ * boot_params to zero.  The list fields in this list are taken from
+ * analysis of kexec-tools; if other broken bootloaders initialize a
+ * different set of fields we will need to figure out how to disambiguate.
+ *
+ */
+static void sanitize_boot_params(struct boot_params *boot_params)
+{
+       if (boot_params->sentinel) {
+               /*fields in boot_params are not valid, clear them */
+               memset(&boot_params->olpc_ofw_header, 0,
+                      (char *)&boot_params->alt_mem_k -
+                       (char *)&boot_params->olpc_ofw_header);
+               memset(&boot_params->kbd_status, 0,
+                      (char *)&boot_params->hdr -
+                      (char *)&boot_params->kbd_status);
+               memset(&boot_params->_pad7[0], 0,
+                      (char *)&boot_params->edd_mbr_sig_buffer[0] -
+                       (char *)&boot_params->_pad7[0]);
+               memset(&boot_params->_pad8[0], 0,
+                      (char *)&boot_params->eddbuf[0] -
+                       (char *)&boot_params->_pad8[0]);
+               memset(&boot_params->_pad9[0], 0, sizeof(boot_params->_pad9));
+       }
+}
+
+#endif /* _ASM_X86_BOOTPARAM_UTILS_H */
 
 #include <asm/io_apic.h>
 #include <asm/bios_ebda.h>
 #include <asm/tlbflush.h>
+#include <asm/bootparam_utils.h>
 
 static void __init i386_default_early_setup(void)
 {
 
 void __init i386_start_kernel(void)
 {
+       sanitize_boot_params(&boot_params);
+
        memblock_reserve(__pa_symbol(&_text),
                         __pa_symbol(&__bss_stop) - __pa_symbol(&_text));
 
 
 #include <asm/kdebug.h>
 #include <asm/e820.h>
 #include <asm/bios_ebda.h>
+#include <asm/bootparam_utils.h>
 
 static void __init zap_identity_mappings(void)
 {
        char * command_line;
 
        memcpy(&boot_params, real_mode_data, sizeof boot_params);
+       sanitize_boot_params(&boot_params);
        if (boot_params.hdr.cmd_line_ptr) {
                command_line = __va(boot_params.hdr.cmd_line_ptr);
                memcpy(boot_command_line, command_line, COMMAND_LINE_SIZE);