How do I create a boot disk for my system?

I'm making a dual boot Windows 2000 / Red Hat 7.1 system.

During the installation process of Red Hat, I created a boot disk. But that disk is damaged, and so when I try to load up linux, it says "Boot failed: please change disks and press a key to continue."

So I want to create a new boot disk. How do I do that?

Also, is there an existing boot disk out there that will work, so I can access my linux system? I have the following partitions setup:

hda1 = windows 2000 partition
hda2 = boot partition
hda5 = root partition
hda6 = swap partition

If you're using KDE, and have a package called "kdeadmin" installed, then you can use the utility "qmkbootdisk". Pretty handy, IMO. It's also in the KDE menu: System -> Create a boot disk .

I'm certain you can create boot disks even if you don't have that, but I just don't know how

Ok I'll try that.

But first I need to know how to boot into my linux. At the moment, I have no boot disk.

Hi !!!

Im not familiar with RedHat, but you can try to boot from the installation CD and look for an option that boot the installed system (RedHat), that worked for me with SuSE. Hope this helps.

When you boot up with your disk, if you get a lilo prompt then type in linux single. If that doesn't work, then try linux single root=/dev/hda5 initrd=. If it works, you'll be in single user mode. That means no x window. Then all you have to do is make a new boot disk.

I got that info here .

You have Win2000, so you need to use the Win2000 boot manager, you cannot use other Linux boot managers (I do not know how to configure this... try searching these questions, I think it has been answered before). This allows you to boot without a boot floppy.

If you want to get into your Linux there should be a boot disc image on the installation CD (there was on the older one I had). You can copy that to floppy, but you may need TRUE DOS mode, and I don't know if Win2000 has this (in which case you need a DOS boot floppy!). Check the CD documentation (from Win2000).

If you know about using the Linux system, you can download a small Linux system like tomsrtbt (search Google). You then mount your linux drives and create a boot disc from that. Ask for more details.

Post a note with your preferred option, and problems you have.

Joe

Hi,

The way I always make boot disks if I ever need to is from the DOS prompt in windows. I'm not sure about all dist. but with RedHat 6, on the CD they have a dir with boot images called "images". I use a program called "rawrite" whcih you can find in the "dosutils" directory. I issue this command to make my disk.

d:\dosutils\rawrite -f d:\images\boot.img -d a:\

works everytime and it's pretty simple.

Cheers!

If you had not yet made your linux boot file for the Windows 2000 boot loader, and it is not available to Windows, you will have a very difficult time trying to be able to boot to Linux.

This is because the file made available to the Windows bootloader actually includes the LILO program with information about the drive and path to your kernel.

I believe that it is actually possible to do this if you have the exact information about the path to your kernel. You may be able to set another emergency boot disk up from your Linux install CD ROM then modify it with the rdev program, as explained at
http://www.comptechdoc.org/os/linux/...ergencyfs.html
and
http://www.comptechdoc.org/os/linux/...nux_hllkr.html
You would need access to the rdev program from your install CD-ROM or another system, and I'm not sure you have that.

It may just be easier to load Linux again.