Clan x86

Technical (Development, Security, etc.) => Unix / Linux Discussion => Topic started by: rabbit on August 18, 2006, 04:08:03 PM

Title: Weird Bootdisk Needed
Post by: rabbit on August 18, 2006, 04:08:03 PM
I need a floppy bootdisk that says "boot from the CD-ROM", but I'm not sure where to get one that does that, and I'm not exactly sure even what to search for...

[edit]
Newby sucks at giving me the bootdisk.
Title: Re: Weird Bootdisk Needed
Post by: iago on August 18, 2006, 04:17:37 PM
That's a tricky problem, because the BIOS doesn't really know how to work a CDRom. 

I'm not exactly sure what your eventual goal is, but the common way is to put a small Linux kernel (vmlinuz or whatever) on the disk and boot that, somehow.  There's lots of guides to doing that. 
Title: Re: Weird Bootdisk Needed
Post by: rabbit on August 18, 2006, 06:10:32 PM
Hm.  So basically what I want to do is boot to vmlinuz and then mount the CD-ROM and then run the installer?  I'm still not sure about the last part, but I'll find out soon enough.
Title: Re: Weird Bootdisk Needed
Post by: rabbit on August 20, 2006, 05:11:36 PM
Okay, I've got the bootdisk, but when I dd the image to the floppy, it doesn't work right.  I guess that's because I don't know WTF I'm doing.  How do I dd it?
Title: Re: Weird Bootdisk Needed
Post by: Joe on August 22, 2006, 11:29:21 AM
I probably have no idea what's going on here, but would MSCDEX and sys a: do the trick here?
Title: Re: Weird Bootdisk Needed
Post by: Joe on August 26, 2006, 12:22:01 AM
Why was this (http://www.x86labs.org:81/forum/index.php/topic,7164.msg89192.html#new) trashed? He answered rabbit's question as to where it needs to be written on the floppy. He didn't say the specific dd command, but he did give information.
Title: Re: Weird Bootdisk Needed
Post by: MyndFyre on August 26, 2006, 06:36:42 AM
Quote from: Joex86] link=topic=7097.msg89192#msg89192 date=1156566121]
Why was this (http://www.x86labs.org:81/forum/index.php/topic,7164.msg89192.html#new) trashed? He answered rabbit's question as to where it needs to be written on the floppy. He didn't say the specific dd command, but he did give information.

...none of which was helpful.
Title: Re: Weird Bootdisk Needed
Post by: rabbit on August 26, 2006, 10:05:12 AM
Wow...that was useless.  I don't think I'd be much of a ....me...if I didn't know where bootsectors go.  They go in the middle, right?
Title: Re: Weird Bootdisk Needed
Post by: Joe on August 26, 2006, 08:51:49 PM
You do know that a bootsector can call another bootsector, right? And that said bootsector could be in the middle, right?
Title: Re: Weird Bootdisk Needed
Post by: MyndFyre on August 27, 2006, 03:14:18 PM
Quote from: Joex86] link=topic=7097.msg89271#msg89271 date=1156639909]
You do know that a bootsector can call another bootsector, right? And that said bootsector could be in the middle, right?

That wouldn't actually be a boot sector, though.  It would have code related to booting.

A boot sector is called by the BIOS.