how to never lose your bootup disk
 

ok, i run win 2000, win XP and Redhat 9
i didnt install grub nor lilo when i intalled redhat 9, just booted from a floppy, the floppy soon stuffed as they generally do and i had to reinstall redhat again as i couldnt get the hang of rescue mode, after i reinstalled i had a new bootup floppy as it recommends you make one during installation. pretty quickly after installation i got rawrite for windows and have made an image of the bootup floppy and saved it to my hardrive so if the bootup floppy ever stuffs up again i can make a new one in windows easy as that, this is also handy for people who overwrite grub or lilo when reinstalling windows as many on here seem to do.
here are the steps to take to ensure you always have a bootup floppy.
download rawrite from here first:
http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/rawwrite.htm

steps once you have rawrite
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Making a copy of a disk
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- Run rawwritewin.exe and click on the READ tab.
- Make sure that the \\.\A: appears in the Floppy Drive box at the top ( sometimes it doesn't so, if not, close and re-open the program)
- Insert the disk you want to copy and then click on the browse button (...) in the image file box and select the location you want to store the file
- Type the full name you want to give the file (eg. RedHatBoot.img - you must include the '.img' extention or else the program won't find the file when you want to dump it on another disk later). Leave the default location as the FloppyImager folder as it is the first place it looks for files.
- Click the READ button at the bottom to copy the disk.

Creating an new Disk from Image files
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- Run rawwritewin.exe and click on the WRITE tab.
- Make sure that the \\.\A: appears in the Floppy Drive box at the top ( sometimes it doesn't so, if not, close and re-open the program)
- Insert the disk you want to write to and then click on the browse button (...) in the image file box and select the file you want to use (eg.RedHatBoot.img)
- Click the WRITE button at the bottom to copy to the disk.

A perfect copy of the original.

hope it helps someone !!!

Good How-To, but I normally just keep mine magnetted to my fridge. :D