I have an installation of disk for College Linux 2.3 which I want to install on a totally bare 1.2Gb hard drive which is in a removeable tray. My usual hard drive is a 2.1Gb also in aremovable tray so I can have two seperate OS with out any interferance. My problem is how can get a floppy setup disc ? My Cd rom is not bootable as the bios only looks for drive A and C for the OS so once the Linus is installed I will have no problems but at present I cannot get an installation at all. I did try a setup floppy which install Caldera but it will not recognise the CD and I get the error message that the CD is not a Caldera. My base system is old with a Cyrix 686 133 Mhz with 82Mb of ram.
Any suggestions as there is no dosutils on teh Cd so I cannot run rawrite in order to get started.

This is my first attempt at trying to install any Linux so please be gentle with me.

hm.. im a newbie at the subject but i found the Cd drivers on my instalation cD

Try this website. I think its just what you're looking for.

http://members.optusnet.com.au/atar/sboot.htm

The trick is that you can't just copy the Smart Boot Manager image file to a floppy -- it needs to be written with a special program called rawritewin. If you aren't using Windows, there are also other versions for other operating systems. If you have any problems, reply here or IM me and I'll do my best to help you.

Try this website. I think its just what you're looking for.

http://members.optusnet.com.au/atar/sboot.htm

The trick is that you can't just copy the Smart Boot Manager image file to a floppy -- it needs to be written with a special program called rawritewin. If you aren't using Windows, there are also other versions for other operating systems. If you have any problems, reply here or IM me and I'll do my best to help you.


Hi again
when I try to download the rawritewin file I get the error message "diskio.dll" missing script did not return a status code. Any ideas as to what is happening ?

Try getting RAWWRITEWIN from this website -- it worked for me.

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

Then use it to put the SBM image on the floppy.

Hi I'm back again Tried the site suggested and got the following "Failed to load diskio.dll Load libary 16 Failed"

Still cant get anything to happen at all.

Hmm... Okay, here's another method (actually 2) that don't require RawWrite.

Try downloading SBM from this website:

http://btmgr.webframe.org/index.php3?body=download.html

Get both the DOS file and the support file (both "binaries"). Unzip them to a directory that's easy to type in, like c:\SBMINST

Then, under Windows, go to Start>Run. You'll get a DOS prompt. cd to the directory you downloaded them to (for example, ). Put a blank disk in your floppy drive and type this at the DOS prompt:

_______________________________________

Alternatively, you could download XOSL. This program actually uses SBM to boot operating systems, but the installation and use are considerably more user-friendly.

http://www.ranish.com/part/xosl.htm

Unzip the file and run the Setup program. It should walk you through the process.

As always, if you have any problems, reply to this thread and I'll do my best to help.

Hi me again
Still more poblems the SBM site will not allow me download all I get is a message "Protected mode not accessable"
I have tried to unzip the files from the Ranish site but when Itry to boot my comp returns the error message "Not a valid installation disk. Remove disk and press any key to continue".

Sorry to be a pain but most companies think we all the latest equipment available.

I agree -- there should be an easier way to make boot disks for us who have old hardware (I'm running Slackware on a P133). But don't worry -- I'm not giving up on you until we find a way to make College Linux work!

It sounds like maybe your version of Windows isn't giving you proper permissions to make a boot disk with RawWrite (I guess?). So let's go with the second method, using XOSL.

Let's try this way of doing it:

BEFORE you do anything with the files you downloaded for XOSL, go to Windows Explorer or My Computer. Right-click on your A: drive (which contains an blank disk, right?) and choose Format... then check the box that says make a MS-DOS system disk. Click OK or Format or whatever it says. It will copy the very basic DOS system files to the disk, which will make it bootable.

Now you have a bootable disk. Now let's make it a real "boot disk" that can boot other operating systems.

Unzip your files from the XOSL directory (not the files from the Manual directory) within the XOSL .zip file to the floppy. Then reboot.

Your computer should boot from the floppy and give you an A:\> prompt.

Since you don't want the boot manager on your hard drive, but on your floppy, type
This will make your floppy boot right into your boot manager. If you get a "Bad command or file name" message, type "cd XOSL" (without the quotes) and then "sbminst -d 0" (again, without the quotes.)

Reboot again with the floppy still in the drive. With any luck, you'll get a boot menu that includes an option for booting from your CD-ROM drive.

If something isn't working, let me know and try to be as clear as possible about which step isn't working.

Good luck,

Damon

Hi Again
It worked up to a point. Ive now got a boot disk with a list of opitions but unfortunatly a CD Rom isn't one of them.
At the boot menu I get a header of Flag Number Type Name.
The first line consistes of hyphens under flag and number Type is None and Name is Quit to bios
Next line Hyphens under flag number type is None NAme is Power off
Next line Hypens under Flag and Number None under type and Name is Reboot
next line 7 hyphens D Number FDO 0 Type None Name Floppy
Last line 7 hyphens D HDO 0 under number Type None name Harddisk
Sorry that is all no CDRom.

OK... This is getting out of my area of expertise a little bit. Try pressing TAB and choose System Settings. Go to Rescan All Drives. Before you do this, make sure your College Linux CD is in the drive and the drive is closed... and that it is turned on, connected, etc. Double-check to see if your CD-ROM drive is in the list. Also be sure to scroll down (if you can) to find it.

If this doesn't work, let me know what type of CD-ROM drive you have (internal? external? PCMCIA?).

If the above doesnt work, read this from the SBM documentation:

HI Again
I've that but it made no difference , the cd rom drive is still not on the list of boot opitions. Its nothing special just a bog standard IDE Maxtor x8 speed. It works ok in every other aspect and I play music cds through the sound card under windows if it helps

That's all I know how to do. I would suggest that you post a thread titled "CD-ROM not recognized in SBM" or something similar perhaps in the Linux-General forum.

Good luck!

Thanks damonw5 for all your help in trying to get me up and running. I haven't a clue as to why things didn't work out the way they should.