Re: Help booting from floppy

["Jas" <dhaliwal pathcom com>]

> From:          "Adam Davidson" <davo southcom com au>
> To:            <redhat-install-list redhat com>
> Subject:       Help booting from floppy
> Date:          Sat, 4 Apr 1998 17:54:21 +1000
> Reply-to:      redhat-install-list redhat com

> Hi, here's the problem.
> 
> I have a 4GB IDE hard drive with NT4.0 on 1 partiton and I have just
> installed RH Linux 5.0 on another partition. When I got to the LILO part of
> the RH installation, I told it to install LILO on the first sector of my linux
> root partition (hda6). My next task was to get the bootsector from the linux
> root so I could use it with NT's boot loader. This is where I started to run
> into problems. I booted from the RH5.0 boot disk and used the rescue option. I
> was then able to mount my linux partition with
> 
> # mount hda6 /mnt
> 
> I then had access to the dd program and tried running
> 
> # dd if=/dev/hda6 of=<filename> bs=512 count=1
> 
> and got: /dev/hda6 no such file or directory.
> 
> How do I get my linux system up using the RH boot disk?
> 
> I also tried using an old slackware boot disk and at the LILO prompt typed
> 
> mount root=/dev/hda6 at the boot prompt
> 
> this didn't work and I got a kernel panic VFS: unable to mount root fs on
> 03:06.
> 
> I don't know what to try next?
> 
> Any help would be greatly appreciated. I would be happy if I could just get my
> linux system up from a floppy at this stage.
> 
> With thanks,
> Adam Davidson
> davo southcom com au
> 
> 
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> 
Hello

Here's what I had to go through before to make a floppy that boots Linux when 
LILO didnt work for me. Perhaps this will help you..

--------
No luck with LILO on floppy so far...but i managed a work around...
(basically I created a linux boot disk to start my system)
I post my findings so other beginners may also benefit....

My current config:
Primary Master:  1.2G HD -  win95
Primary Slave : EIDE CDROM
Secondary Master:2.1G -Linux
        partition 1: 100MB swap
        partition 2: rest of drive root
Secondary Slave: none

Adaptec 2940 SCSI with Syquest EZflyer

I wanted LILO on a floppy but LILO kept halting and only showed "LI"
(even repartioning so root was within 1st 1023 cylinders had no effect...so I 
returned to partitioning scheme above).

Using the redhat CD rom (a CD rom included with a book i purchased)  i created 
a boot floppy as follows: From CD rom drive (assume F in this case)

F:\DOSUTILS> RAWRITE
Enter disk image source file name:  \IMAGES\BOOT.IMG
Enter target diskette drive: A
Please insert a formatted diskette into drive A: and press -ENTER-:

Copying takes about 30sec.

PC was now booted with this disk:
At the prompt I entered "vmlinuz root=/dev/hdc2" 
(naturally quotes were not entered)

Now the Linux on my secondary master booted and I was able to login as root 
using password set during installation.

Once logged in:

[root]#  rdev /boot/vmlinuz
Root device /dev/sda1

This was strange ... it was pointing to sda1...when it should have been 
hdc2...so I entered the following...

[root]# rdev  /boot/vmlinuz  /dev/hdc2

Rdev is silent so I had to enter again to see if change took place...

[root]#  rdev /boot/vmlinuz
Root device /dev/hdc2

Now I created a Linux boot floppy for my system as follows...

[root]# dd if=/boot/vmlinuz of=/dev/fd0 bs=8192

Once complete the boot floppy can now be used to start my system.
If the floppy is in on boot up Linux starts....if it is out then win95 on 
Primary master will start....Essentially this is all I really needed to be 
able to do....

I managed to find details on creating a Linux boot disk  from a book 
"Running Linux" (O'Reilly press) which I recommend to other beginners...ISBN # 
1-56592-151-8
------------------------



Regards
Jas

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