Some computers cannot boot from a CD, and many distributions solve this problem by providing a floppy disk image which loads the CD.

However, I have found that with MandrakeMove, there is no floppy image provided.

As far as I understand it, most CDs have a floppy image on the CD to boot from, and simply copying this to a floppy should work (I'd like confirmation of this - I know that they need a floppy image to boot from, but I haven't checked that it would work if put onto a floppy).

MandrakeMove uses ISOLINUX instead of a floppy image, meaning there is nothing I can try copying onto a floppy.

So, my question is:

1) Is there a way to create a floppy disk that will boot any CD, or does the boot image need to be specific to a CD? I'm expecting the latter, but can't see any fundamental problem with a floppy disk to look at the boot sector of the CD and go from there.

2) If there is not a way to create a generic floppy to load any CD, how can I create a bootable floppy for a CD that uses ISOLINUX?

did a quick search and found this

This is a good one.

http://btmgr.sourceforge.net/

Thanks, both of you.

It seems like the first one needs to be installed on the hard drive to work, which isn't very helpful, but that second one is just what I was looking for.