I'm trying to make a boot disk for Debian using rawrite. The manual I obtained from the Debian website says to download programs such as FDVOL, WrtDsk or Rawrite3 to make the boot disk. I find it strange I should have to get these programs, however I did download rawrite3 and it didn't work.

I tried rawrite2 which is on the first cd image and that didn't work either.

I found three .img files on the cd; all of them tftpboot.img in these three different folders...

\dists\woody\main\disks-i386\3.0.23-2002-05-21\bf2.4
\dists\woody\main\disks-i386\3.0.23-2002-05-21\compact
\dists\woody\main\disks-i386\3.0.23-2002-05-21\idepci

The error message I get from rawrite is "no such file exists in this folder. I tried all three image files.

Any ideas of what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks.
Will

If you're preparing your Debian installation from Windows, there exists a nifty win32 gui frontend for rawrite:

http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/rawwrite.htm

If the floppy image files in your cd are really no good, you can download new ones from your nearest mirror.

http://www.debian.org/distrib/floppyinst

Thanks for the the tip and I downloaded the win32 gui frontend and it work well except that when I boot off the floppy I get a message like this...

Kernel panic:VFS Unable to mount root fs 0 3a:05.

Shouldn't there be a boot.img on the cd images I downloaded?
It seems to me that the tftpboot.img is for a network install.

I can't boot off the cdrom because its an old machine. I thought it would be a good way to learn Debian.


Thanks again

Will

Kernel panic suggests that the kernel you use doesn't support your hardware. In Woody installation there are several kernels to choose from and each kernel has its own floppy set. The fb2.4 kernel has better support for newer hardware.

Basically, you start with the rescue floppy and continue with the root floppy.

For more info see section 4.2.3 "Where to Find Installation Files":

http://www.debian.org/releases/stabl...ethods.en.html

And section 5.3 "Booting from Floppies":

http://www.debian.org/releases/stabl...e-boot.en.html

After you've prepared your system using floppies, you should be given the option to use cd-roms for the actual installation:

http://www.debian.org/releases/stabl...system.en.html