Boot disk problem

[iconfly]

Hi, I have done the hd install. I installed to a second drive, hdb
The install went O.K. untill the making of the boot floppy, which
failed.
So I now do not have a way of booting to linux.
I tried to make a bootdisk using mkboot /boot/vmlimuz but this
failed with a message about lack of space.

Does anyone have any ideas please?

I still have the image on the first drive and can do a "poor mans
boot"

Thanks in advance, Jimmy.

[Dave_Bechtel]

--Warning: Untested

0. Boot Knoppix CD
0a. Mount your root partition (assuming /dev/hdb1) ' mount /mnt/hdb1 '

1. Place blank floppy in drive
2. ' mkdosfs -c -v /dev/fd0 ' == Format floppy
3. ' syslinux /dev/fd0 ' == You may want to use the -s option, see ' man syslinux '

4. ' mkdir /mnt/floppy; mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy '
5. ' cp /mnt/hdb1/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.22-xfs /mnt/floppy/vmlinuz ' == Copy kernel and rename to vmlinuz
6. ' cp /mnt/hdb1/boot/initrd.gz /mnt/floppy ' == Copy initrd

7. Copy the following to /mnt/floppy/syslinux.cfg:


default knoppix
prompt 1
timeout 50
label knoppix
kernel vmlinuz
append root=/dev/hdb1 ro vga=791 apm=power-off hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi hde=scsi hdf=scsi hdg=scsi hdh=scsi nomce initrd=initrd.gz


--Edit the "append" line to whatever cheatcodes you need to boot; it should be all one long line. You can also use vga=ext or vga=normal if you don't want framebuffer.

--When done, ' cd; umount /dev/fd0 ' and ' reboot '.


Hi, I have done the hd install. I installed to a second drive, hdb
The install went O.K. untill the making of the boot floppy, which
failed.
So I now do not have a way of booting to linux.
I tried to make a bootdisk using mkboot /boot/vmlimuz but this
failed with a message about lack of space.

Does anyone have any ideas please?

I still have the image on the first drive and can do a "poor mans
boot"

Thanks in advance, Jimmy.

[iconfly]

Thank you very much for the detailed insructions.
I will try this. In the meantime I have partitioned the first drive and done
an install to that. However I still have the installation on the second drive, and I want to use that one.
I have always made a floppy boot disk everytime I have done a linux install.
I do not know why it failed with the knoppix install but when it did I did not have the option to retry.

I also intend to get 3.3 and try the new install when I find out ore about it.
Thanks again, I have read the instructions and I think I can see
how it works. Jimmy.