Boot disk, rescue disk
 

Hi,

I had created the boot disk while installing the red hat linux 8.0 on my computer(by answering to 'do you want boot disk?') during installation process. After installation was over I used boot disk to boot into linux and it worked just fine. I mean I could get login prompt after I booted from floppy.

But when I created DOS-based boot disk by copying the boot image 'boot.img' from first red hat installation CD(using \dosutils\rawrite) and use it, it no longer boots into linux. Instead it starts the Linux installation process asking something like 'Which media contains installation package?'. And when I use this in resuce mode it asks 'Which media contains rescue image?'

Now my question is doesn't boot disk works as resuce disk itself? And also why does boot disk created during installation behave differently from the one created by copying boot image from Installation CD?

Can anyone help me clearifying above questions. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks & regards,
Deepika

Red Hat has 2 different boot disks available. One boots into your Linux system and the other boots into the Red Hat install CD.

One of the uses for the install CD is that it can be used as a rescue
system. So the question: 'Which media contains rescue image?' means that the boot floppy wants to know where to find the install CD.

Thanks steve,

I knew that red hat installation CD can be used as rescue disk. I just wanted to know if boot disk alone can be used as rescue disk because RHCE books says that 'the installation boot disk can also server as a rescue disk'.

thanks,
Deepika

" I just wanted to know if boot disk alone can be used as rescue disk"

I don't know whether the Red Hat boot floppy can be used as a rescue disk without also accessing the CD. As a general rule bootable floppies do not make good rescue systems because they don't have much space. They can only hold a limited number of utility programs. Probably, any useful utilities are located on the CD.

The best bootable floppy system is probably tomsrtbt:
http://www.toms.net/rb/

Tom Oehser has done about as good a job as possible in creating a generalized system on a floppy and also cramming in a few utility programs.