I am trying to make a grub boot floppy before I fdisk /mbr to play with recovery mode but its not working.

I followed the directions on http://www.geocities.com/cyberkabila/main/grub.htm
but it is not working.

#mke2fs /dev/fd0

#mount -t ext2 /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy

#grub-install --root-directory = /mnt/floppy

When I type this command it just gives me the help info like I typed it wrong... I also tried

grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/floppy
grub-install --root-directory=mnt/floppy
grub-install --root-directory= /mnt/floppy
grub-install --root-directory /mnt/floppy
grub-install --root-directory mnt/floppy
grub-install --root-directory=/ /mnt/floppy

Last command it says format of install_device not recognized

Suggestions?

try here instead:

http://www.ircee.com/sxs/grubflop.html

it says it is for caldera, but you can extrapolate i think

OR this one is directly from grub's website:

http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/grub-faq.en.html#q4

Hi how you doing?

Try this one!!!

The /etc/grub.conf file is used only to install grub and is not used by grub directly. We will create a new version of this file.

1. Format a floppy disk in FAT format:

mkfs -V -t msdos /dev/fd0 <== use fd0 or fd1 as appropriate

2. Mount the floppy:

mount /dev/fd0 /mnt

3. Create a boot directory and a grub directory on the floppy:

mkdir /mnt/boot
mkdir /mnt/boot/grub

4. Copy all files from /boot/grub to the floppy:

cp -pa /boot/grub/* /mnt/boot/grub


5. Unmount the floppy disk:

umount /mnt
<now we modify the /etc/grub.conf file to install grub on the floppy>
6. Make a copy of /etc/grub.conf and call it: /etc/grubfd.conf:

cp /etc/grub.conf /etc/grubfd.conf

7. Edit the new /etc/grubfd.conf file to look as follows:

#
# /etc/grubfd.conf - make a floppy boot disk
#
# To install grub on the floppy, issue the following command:
# grep -v ^# /etc/grubfd.conf | grub --batch
#
root (fd0)
install /boot/grub/stage1 d (fd0) (fd0)/boot/grub/stage2 0x8000 p (fd0)/boot/grub/menu.lst
quit

8. Install GRUB on the floppy disk:

grep -v ^# /etc/grubfd.conf | grub --batch


GRUB version 0.5.94 (640K lower / 3072K upper memory)

[ Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported. For the first word, TAB
lists possible command completions. Anywhere else TAB lists the possible
completions of a device/filename. ]

grub> root (fd0)
Filesystem type is fat, using whole disk

grub> install /boot/grub/stage1 d (fd0) (fd0)/boot/grub/stage2 0x8000 p (fd0)/boot/grub/menu.lst

grub> quit

and all is done good luck

------------Gerardo

Linux: Fast, Stable, Flexible