makebootdisk won't allow me to make a boot floppy as my floppy is external on /dev/sda not /dev/fd?.

Can I make a boot cd? I will have to do this manually I guess but I am not sure what stuff to write?

Cheers

Just found some stuff about manually making a boot floppy:

# fdformat /dev/fd0H1440 # Lay tracks on new diskette
# mkfs -t minix /dev/fd0 1440 # Create minix file system on floppy
# mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy # Mount floppy
# cp -p /boot/chain.b /mnt/floppy # Copy chain loader
# cp -p /boot/boot* /mnt/floppy
# lilo -v -C /etc/lilo.floppy # Install lilo and the map onto floppy
# umount /mnt/floppy

Ok it makes sense up to the point where it says to copy the chain loader to disk. My /boot is as follows:

System.map boot.0302 config-ide-2.4.22 vmlinuz-ide-2.4.22
System.map-ide-2.4.22 boot_message.txt map
boot.0300 config vmlinuz



There is no chain.b! How I have managed to boot so far though lilo w/o this crucial file I am not sure but the stuff in /boot is just the default from when I ran liloconfig so I don't know what is going on??????

Where did you install lilo? in the MBR?
chain.b is used when there is an entry for loading windows or other operationg system. boot.b is (I think) the backup of your MBR that lilo makes when you run it. the diredtions you found are for making a lilo bootdisk which is not what the makebootdisk script uses. it uses syslinux. If you have syslinux installed you can manually make a boot disk. instead of addressing /dev/fd0 8first floppy), you'd point it at /dev/sda.
The lilo.conf file is /etc/lilo.conf. Anytime you make changes to your lilo.conf file you have to run ilo again so that it writes the new info to where you installed lilo.
If you have installed lilo to the MBR and just want to make a general bootdisk try syslinux. If you have lilo on the MBR and want to make a lilo floppy also, you'lll have to manually edit your /etc/lilo.conf and change the line:
boot=/dev/hda
to.
boot=dev/sda
I think all this will only work, in your case, if you machine is able to boot from USB. If not you'll need a special boot floppy that loads the modules for USB. There is an excellent resource for this and also a great HOWTO for making a custom Slackware bootdisk at the site for RUNT Linux.
There are instructions for making a bootable installation CD in the /isolinux directory on the Slackware site or on the CD

Thanks for the advice.

It was dawning on me about chain.b. I had lilo set up as dual boot untill this problem when I re-ran liloconfig and when with the default linux only ability.

I think my laptop bios can handle the USB floppy because once I left a floppy inside during startup and it tried to boot from it (my bios was set to boot from 1st removable drive). However, I would not put my morgage on it so I will look into the ISOLINUX cd on the slack site which you recommend.

Prior to this I was considering putting lilo on the superblock of / (hda2), I was hoping that I would have to only put the lilo.config on my floppy.

I only need this as a one of because my windows XP needs reinstalling. XP repair is a joke and so is the fact that it purges the MBR when it reinstalls.