Simple Floppy Booter

mhelliwell · 03-08-2005, 10:27 PM

This are the specs I am looking for...

- Pop the diskette in, reboot and you get a screen saying "Okay, now stick the CD in and I'll boot your PC from it for you"

The reason I ask for this is that on all the distros I've tried to install from floppy, their boot program is EXACTLY 1.44 megabytes. Maybe it's my computer, but my floppies seem to need some leftover space. If there is some multi-distro friendly program that does this, and is less than exactly 1.44 MB, I'd love to know about it.

homey · 03-08-2005, 10:48 PM

Quote:

"Okay, now stick the CD in and I'll boot your PC from it for you"

Smart Boot Manager allows you to choose what gets booted, such as cdroms or different operating systems.

mhelliwell · 03-09-2005, 09:20 PM

I took your advice and tried Smart Boot Manager, but first I had to install DOS, and that was again, exactly 1.44 MB. I am seriously really ticked at my PC. I have been trying at this for weeks. Any more suggestions?

homey · 03-09-2005, 10:45 PM

I'm not sure what is going on with your machine. Did you try different floppies? Here is how I put smb on a floppy while in linux....

Code:

I downloaded sbminst ( not the .exe ) from
http://sourceforge.net/project/showf...lease_id=25481

Format a floppy disk with the command: fdformat /dev/fd0

Make sbminst executable with the command:
chmod +x sbminst

Put the program onto the floppy with the command:
./sbminst -t us -d /dev/fd0

Here's the actual output from xterm

Code:

# fdformat /dev/fd0
Double-sided, 80 tracks, 18 sec/track. Total capacity 1440 kB.
Formatting ... done
Verifying ... done
# chmod +x sbminst
# ./sbminst -t us -d /dev/fd0

Smart Boot Manager 3.7.1 Installer Copyright (C) 2000 Suzhe, Lonius
This is free software, you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2.

This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY!

Are you sure you want to install Smart BootManager into drive /dev/fd0 [y/n]?y

Installation successful!
#

mhelliwell · 03-10-2005, 08:10 PM

Is there a such thing as a boot image isn't exactly 1440 KB? I will do some research... I am using Windows XP for the floppy creation. Anyway, thanks for helping.

J.W. · 03-10-2005, 10:01 PM

I'm not sure if the problem here is that you're having trouble creating the boot floppy itself, or that you can't get the installation started. If it's the first scenario, and you are creating the floppy under XP, I'll assume you're probably using RAWRITE.exe or one of its cousins. Try a different one, like RAWRITE12.exe, RAWRITE13.exe, etc. For example this Slackware mirror gives you a variety to choose from. It's been a while since I did this, but I recall that when I was trying to create the boot floppy, nothing I tried seemed to work, and I just couldn't get the Slack installation going. I finally figured I had nothing to lose, so I tried using a different version of RAWRITE to create the boot disk, and that did the trick.

Sorry if this is OT to your question but I figured I offer it as suggestion. Good luck with it -- J.W.

mhelliwell · 03-13-2005, 05:33 PM

I think the floppy is ok, but my old cranky PC doesn't seem to read .img files.... I am wondering how I am going to do this. P.S. I tried different versions of RaWrite and even some other progrma that claimed it did .img files. I think it is the boot. Anyways, anyone have an answer?

sybariten · 03-21-2005, 07:09 PM

Dear Helliwell.
I am not sure what you are looking for, but i have a boot floppy that just boots up a machine that doesnt support CD booting natively, and then boots from the CDrom. It does this, and nothing more, and it does it very well.
I currently dont have it with me, but i need it, so i have been searching the net like a madmad for the last hour. And bear in mind that i carry a black belt in google. But nothing.
All i find is Smart boot manager, which i havent made work ("smbk bad!"), and i dont think its that one i have at home.
I will return to the forum and write the name here, when i get back home .... mail med at sybariten at gmail dott com in case i dont remember

peace

michaelk · 03-21-2005, 08:26 PM

AFAIK rawrite does not work with XP. You need to use the windows version i.e. winrawrite to create the floppy disk. I would say the img file will be 1.440mb due to it being a byte for byte copy just like CD ISO files.

alred · 03-22-2005, 05:47 AM

can your not so EXACTLY 1.44 floppy disk drive boot a normal
win95/98 boot disk.
if not ,try cleaning your floppy disk head
still can't boot ,maybe faulty disk head alignment,
just change to a new EXACTLY 1.44 floppy disk drive.

mhelliwell · 03-22-2005, 12:59 PM

nm, got it to work!

sybariten · 03-24-2005, 09:36 AM

Welli eventually got SMart Boot manager boot floppy to work, but when i got home i checked up that other boot floppy i had, that was somewhat more simple and robust. Turns out its called "BCDL", and ofcourse i didnt find it, because its russian!
The page is here: http://bootcd.narod.ru/
its the small bcdl zip you want... look for an image inside, rawrite it with rawritewin or linux, and watch your old tired machine boot from CD....

peace