boot floppys don't work

If you want a floppy boot disk that works download smart boot manager binary file and use rawrite2 in win to make it or use the directions for linux. Its has been the best for me to avoid changing the bios for cd installs or simply to boot diffrent OS' . SBM.exe has never worked for me in the past and will have you pulling hair shortly so be sure to get the linux bianary, rawrite2 is on the Mepis cd in boot dir. i believe. Its been an indespensable tool for me.
Its getting a little hard to find lately i think development has ceased but its out there i just checked yesterday looking for scsi boot help. Let me know if you have problems.

jim

am used to rawwrite,went to cd under floppy, and make the set of 3. went through them and back to 1...but i see why no work.. it was pointing to hda1..not my case. am having no luck in editing the boot up from floppy

any ideas?

thanks

Dont know what you mean. Use rawrite to make the floppy and it will boot allmost anything hard drive cdrom a partition etc.. Copy rawrite2 and the bianary file to a working directory with a good floppy in drive A:.. Then execute rawrite.exe it will ask for the destination drive whitch is A: and then the location and the name of the file to be written whitch is sbminst-static, in a few seconds it should write the disk. To test disk just reboot with floppy in drive and scroll to the drive cdrom or what ever you want to boot, it will ask if you want to save it just answer yes and it wont bother you in the future. BUT to use a floppy as a universal boot tool you have to set the bios of your rig to boot from floppy first or it wont find it. One of the caveats of booting with floppy.

jim

Let me see if I understand you... Windows asks if you want to format the floppy?

Are you trying to run the boot floppy while you are still running Windows?

That is not the way boot floppies work. You have to restart the computer with the floppy in the drive.

i was simply viewing the boot disk ,make by mepis, in windows, and it didn't reconize any thing on the disk, hence the format option in windoze. inside of mepis i could read the floppy fine...it just would not boot the machine..dos complently ignored it. coz to dos the disk was blank and unformatted.

jim has sort of got me started...mepis 3.4 CAN NOT MAKE A BOOT DISK. A BUG OF SOME SORT.. it looks like to me i can take rawwrite2, and format a floppy, and simple point to the mepis install on hda3.. but so far have no made it work.

if you take the cd and go floppys, and make up the 3 floppys as they say..and boot them..the lines don't point to the right install (hda3), and i havn't been able to change it yet.(I HATE VI AND ITS COUSINS)

SO..I STILL HAVE TO DELIVER THIS COMPUTER TOMORROW..FOR THE WINDOZ INFO ON IT....

pray for me!!!

larry

First of all, are you sure the BIOS on the computer is set to boot from the floppy first? A lot of machines come set these days to boot from CD & HD but not from floppy and you need to change it in the BIOS.

If you're sure it's set correctly try this.

Do you have a working grub?

If so, you can install grub to a floppy. You still can't edit it under Windows, but it will boot Windows. I just made one and tested it (I've got Windows 98se , Mepis 3.4-3 & Mepis 6.0).

Format a floppy as ext2 by right clicking the Floppy icon and selecting format.

Open the formatted floppy, make a boot folder, go into it and make a grub folder.

Split the window and copy the files stage1 & stage2 and menu.lst from /boot/grub in your Mepis install to /boot/grub of your floppy.

Unmount your floppy and open a konsole terminal.
su to root.
type: grub
at the grub prompt type the commands:
root (fd0)
setup (fd0)
quit

When you reboot the machine, you should get the same grub screen you get from Mepis which should have entries for Windows & Mepis.

Good Luck!

jim has sort of got me started...mepis 3.4 CAN NOT MAKE A BOOT DISK. A BUG OF SOME SORT.. it looks like to me i can take rawwrite2, and format a floppy, and simple point to the mepis install on hda3.. but so far have no made it work.

if you take the cd and go floppys, and make up the 3 floppys as they say..and boot them..the lines don't point to the right install (hda3), and i havn't been able to change it yet.(I HATE VI AND ITS COUSINS)

SO..I STILL HAVE TO DELIVER THIS COMPUTER TOMORROW..FOR THE WINDOZ INFO ON IT....

pray for me!!!

larry

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Larry windows cant see linux as far as windows knows it thinks it needs a format. Now i think we need to get on the same page here. For the machine to boot from floppy the bios has to be set to boot from floppy drive first! If not it will ignore the floppy drive and boot from hard drive in most cases. If you want to make a Mepis boot floppy only, the installed system will do that no problem.
The main thing now is to be sure what youre trying to accomplish and how you want to boot the system or install or just what you need to do.

jim

i wish to thank you very much for your time.

i am closer than ever before..i have made a boot which will get windoz (win2kpro), and will show the linux on the right hda2,,,but nothing happens except the screen just reappears again. this is some real progress.

i am using a total of 3 different computers on this project.

on sunday i delivered the one needing the boot..and explaned to the customer i will be back with a boot disk later..bought some time!!!

the floppys are driving me wild....you never really know when they are mounted...this has slowed me down much.
the same sort of thing exits also in windows..WHEN YOU CHANGE FLOPPYS THE COMPUTER DON'T KNOW YOU HAVE CHANGED IT.
this was a problem with the change line back into the comupter..pin 34 i belive. it will just keep reading the first disk you put in...

some times making the grub change, on the second line setup (fd0)....it will say no file found..this happens only sometimes.

don't give up i am getting closer..( my second year of studying for the linux cert.)

any more ideas?

thanks again

larry

I think the problem is the disks you are making is intended to boot the cdrom to install Mepis to hard drive , so they are not configured to look at a install partition for the kernel etcetra. Rather than use time making disks that are for one OS only it makes sense to me to make a universal boot disk that will work in many situations and it wont be version specific either.

There are several boot managers out there that will do the job and the one that i described earlier is my pick it works well for me and is easy to make in either OS. But mutch easier in win98 i havent tried any kind of dos work in xpee cause i hate it BUT rawrite2 i think will work in most ms winders machines. You can make it from an image or the way i make it using rawrite2 and sbminst-static or sbootmgr.dsk ...

Both those files should be easy to find cause rawrite2 in on the disk. On some Mepis versions i think the other files were there too. If you cant find it on webb yell and i will send it to you as zip file.

jim Edit; im thinking sbootmgr.dsk is what you wantdont member been a while since i made one.

we are really getting good...yes, i am trying to boot to an existing mepis install. if i can make a disk just to do this i would be estatic.

i have just had an awful time dual booting mepis with win2k.

when you let mepis modifiy the MBR, you lose windoze 1/2 the time. as long as mepis don't touch the MBR all things are good. so i want a bootdisk so my customer can learn to use linux. have been in Red Hat, and Mandrake for years..only this year went to Mepis,,i belive it to be the best linux out there.
I did download the first bootloader you mentioned..I don't have ANY idea at all to begin to use it. it is a WAY MORE than i need for this simple issue.

If i could take one of these boots i am making, and point it to the existing install would be great!!!

again thanks very much for your time..know it seems you are working with a fool on this end...

larry

I obviously didnt understand what you were trying to do. Ok now we have a plan, boot the installed Mepis OS one more time and sign in to the root desktop >click install me icon > click reinstall bootloader > click install to floppy button and put a good floppy in drive first then apply. It will make a single floppy that will boot Mepis only on that rig , not good for any other rig. Set BIOS to boot from floppy FIRST! Then test disk by reboot, if it works fix MBR with winders and youre set.
Edit ; reinstall grub to root while your in there too it may need it.
jim

on my first entry I said the boot floppy don't work.
have tried this on about 8 computers now..the floppy the install program makes SIMPLY DON'T BOOT,DON'T WORK, MAYBE WILL NEVER WORK.

NOW YOU SEE THE 25 OR SO HOURS I HAVE SPEND TRYING TO GET A WORKING FLOPPY...

and there should be a easy way to make a bootable floppy...

there just has to be!!!!

any way????

larry

NOW YOU SEE THE 25 OR SO HOURS I HAVE SPEND TRYING TO GET A WORKING FLOPPY...

and there should be a easy way to make a bootable floppy...

there just has to be!!!!

any way????

larry

Larry i have tried to impress upon you that boot floppies wont work if the BIOS is not set to boot from floppy FIRST!
Have you done that? Do you know how to do that? The ways that have been outlined before do work but there are procedures that have to be followed to the letter to make it happen. And i do understand you are under pressure but communication is allso imperitive i cant see what your rig is doing i have to depend on you for information as to whats happening in order to solve your problem. Just chill out and explain whats happening.

jim

i build all my computers to load by default from the floppy first..just good common since,,,,before the ibm pc.

i can load a boot or a dos floppy anytime and it will boot.

i have make boots in mandrake, and it boots always.

have yet to make mepis boot from the disk it makes in the install which goes to floppy.

the instructions are very plain...boot with install cd,,go to install to hard disk. select reinstall grub...select make floppy...it first formats it. then it copies grub to the floppy...AND YOU WILL NOT GET SUCH A DISK TO BOOT!!!!!!!!!!!!

JUST TRY IT YOURSELF AND SEE....

THANKS

LARRY

Now we have that out of the way i see a little more light. Does Mepis say the disk is made ok, it will usually report success or failure?

jim

TELLS WHILE FORMATTING..THEN INSTALLS GRUB TO FLOPPY, THE FINAL LINE SAYS GRUB INSTALLED.

YOU CAN LOOK AT THE FLOPPY AND IT HAS DEVICE.MAP AND MENU.LST ON THE FLOPPY..

THIS IS WHY I WAS SO CONCERNED THAT DOS MIGHT READ IT.

IN THE RED HAT ONES..IT WILL AT LEAST SEE THE DISK.

SO LETS SAY THE MEPIS DON'T WORK AT THIS POINT..

ALL I WANT TO DO IS MAKE THIS FLOPPY, SO THIS CUSTOMER CAN GET
USED TO LINUX. I have even tried writing some code to the floppy, no luck..the best i ever made would boot windoz ok. but you were right it was trying to install the mepis cd.

my problem is i don't understand the linux boot a system. i do know how dos boots to a prompt..but don't see how a disk can boot to bios hooks in linux. and am about too old to learn i believe

larry

Hmmm.... something strange going on here because i have never had one not work. Do me a favor and recheck the bios settings in all panels and make sure floppy seek at boot is enabled. I have come across several that wont boot reliably from floppy if thats not enabled. It would be a good idea to look it over good , there are some strange settings in some.If thats not it im afraid im out of suggestions. Check boot order too as well as main to make sure its enabled there....
But it just doesnt make sense to me, if dos boots why not linux its looking at the disk or that wouldnt work either. The only other thing i can think of is try a cold boot, turn that sucker off for a minute for a fresh start. Maybe it wont whack the hard drive first and bork the boot.

jim

larry why won't you install the grub to the hard drive?
i know that floppies used to work - but even getting a quality floppy blank now is impossible, they last a few goes and die.
can you just move on? modern machines boot from cd when don't boot from hard drive.
i don't have a floppy drive in any machine I use - i have a usb floppy drive for emergencies only which came with my laptop.

Yes,, the quality of floppys is horrible..has been for several years now..

but for troubleshooting we install floppies on all computer i build.

have been using mepis for about 4-6 mo. now..love it.

on most computers we dual boot..hard to sell the public on linux alone..so most put up with it..just so when windoz dies. they can still get on net.

we don't sell or recomend XP in any form..So our business computer come with win2k Pro. on them.

in installing mepis on about 1/2 the computers we have had mepis wipes out the MBR, win comes up with NTLDR missing.

on this one in question,,he has much info on windoz part of computer..and i really don't care to wipe his MBR, and have to reload that windoz mess.

So now you see why this floppy boot is so important to finishing this computer.

am using MEPIS 3.4.3 and love it except for this problem.

have tried this floppy approach on 3 machines now..same result on all...( and did it on the computers, not just making one floppy and trying on all)

I want to talk to someone who has a floppy boot load for a Mepis 3.4.3.

if it is impossible, i will give up...and go back to mandrake..

thank you very much.

larry

ps i would use a USB load if necessary...

What kind of motherboard are you using ? Its difficult for me to picture three rigs that wont boot from floppy , a bad drive or floppy on ocasion but three thats doing the same thing, come on there has to be a reason. Im thinking i would try some other hardware to test it. Do you have another diffrent kind of board to try the disk on? Im very interested to find out what board that is so i can steer clear of it.

jim

all 3 will boot from a DOS, or Dr. DOS flopppy.

none will boot on a Mepis boot floppy.

they will all boot on a 98 boot, and ME boot, even a 95 boot.

these are 3 different MBs, one a new mach Speed 64 bit AMD board..the other is a new compaq MB, the one in his home i do not remember..but was a standard MB.

the problem is not the hardware or the computers.

the problem is the MEPIS boot disk!!

again,,has ANYONE made a bootable floppy for mepis 3.4.3??

any idea??

larry

i'd install grub for mepis in the root partition - i think that this is the missing step, as you just don't have all the boot information available and then make one smart boot manager floppy which can be edited and will boot any of the partitions.

I'm writing this message from my SimplyMepis 3.4-3 installation which I just booted up from a boot floppy.

Just to see, I tried making a boot floppy the way you suggested with the LiveCD. It didn't work here either.
However, putting grub on a floppy manually worked fine.

The simplest way I've found to do it follows:

In Mepis 3.4-3 open a Konsole terminal.
su to become root.

Insert your floppy disk.
Format the floppy with:
mkfs /dev/fd0

Mount your floppy and move to it:
mount /dev/fd0 /media/fd0
cd /media/fd0

make your directories:
mkdir boot
cd boot
mkdir grub
cd grub

Now copy necessary files.

cp /boot/grub/stage* .
cp /boot/grub/message .

Now to make your menu.lst file. Open an editor as root (kdesu kedit works well for that) and paste this menu.lst in:

timeout 5
color cyan/blue white/blue
foreground ffffff
background 2f5178
gfxmenu /boot/grub/message

title MEPIS 3.4-3
kernel (hd0,2)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.15-1-586tsc root=/dev/hda3 nomce splash=verbose vga=791

title Windows
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

The Mepis paragraph is correct for a Mepis 3.4-3 installation on /dev/hda3 which is where you said yours is.

Obviously, you can remove the Windows paragraph if you don't want the option - you can change the timeout, etc.

Save the file as /media/fd0/boot/grub/menu.lst

Now, back in your Konsole terminal, get out of the floppy and unmount it:
cd /
umount /dev/fd0

Now set up grub:
grub
root (fd0)
setup (fd0)
quit

Reboot and you should be OK.

Well larry i just made and used a boot floppy the way i gave directions previously it works without a problem. You probably know that pci scsi controllers are about as tough to boot as anything and this one boots fine. The only thing i can surmise is the OEMs youre dealing with have some kind of winders only setup or boot block. And i have to agree with drlizau install grub to root and try smart boot manager, if that dont work im afraid youre out of luck. I just dont have any definate fix.
Good luck!
ps; it was Mepis 3.4.3 too.
jim

Larry, first I want to suggest that you don't dispair. You have lots of good help with Jim, drlizau, and timkb4cq.

I want to add only one more suggestion. I know you have said that such-and-such boxes have worked with Mandriva and other Linux distros, but I am going to suggest that you try a simple floppy-based Linux distro called Tom's Root Boot. It is a single-floppy-disk Linux distro. It ain't pretty, but it is functional. Here is the link:
http://www.toms.net/rb/

Why give it a try? Because it is a self-contained floppy Linux. If you can download and write it to a floppy and you can successfully boot from it, then it shows that your computer will boot from the floppy. That may sound like a re-statement of the obvious, but in all of the descriptions above I have not seen confirmation that the floppy drive will work in all cases. Yes, you can boot DOS. That's good. But will it boot Linux? If not, why not? That is what we need to figure out!

Were you aware that Linux formats a floppy differently than DOS? It has a higher density than 1.44 MB. For that reason, Linux can be extremely fickle when it comes to floppies. So if it boots DOS, but won't boot a self-contained Linux, then there's something else wrong; perhaps some type of boot-block as James suggested above.

One other thing. Drlizau makes a good point: You may have to install grub to the root partition first before you create the boot floppy (although I doubt it). So the boot floppy chains to the root partition's boot directory and finally boots from there.

And can you please describe what is and is not happening? Is the boot floppy not working at all, spinning forever, giving error messages? Or is it able to boot Mepis, but not Windows, or vice-versa?

Do you have a "test box" that is layed out similar to your clients's boxes. One that you can "break" without getting twitchy because of loss of data? 'Cause James's comments about the motherboard and BIOS are definitely odd (not the comments, the motherboard and BIOS).

OK, I'm rambling and have probably asked the same questions others on here have. So feel free to ignore any and all of my suggestions

I do hope you get the @#*%^$ thing working though!

Jon

I just knew this was do-able...

have gotten to saving the menu.lst file to the floppy.

and i have yet to have permission to write to the floppy,

in previous post i told about having floppy problems, never know when it is mounted..and it don't know when it is changed,

i went to the floopy icon in root mode..told it ok on all permissions...but i guess i didn't convince it.

have tried just dragging to it..no way

tried saving from the k-write file...no way

but it let me drag to file to the desktop..

i really belive this is the answer..if i can just write file to floppy.

again thanks for all your doing..great job..

larry

You could always save the menu.lst file to your home directory and then use File Manager Super User Mode to copy it from there to /media/fd0/boot/grub

I've always had better luck using floppies from the command line in 3.4-3. Floppy handling was always slightly off in that version of Mepis, although it works fine from the command line.
When you use mount and umount manually, as I showed in my last post, you know whether it's mounted or not. And it also gets around the problem of the floppy change line, as a command line umount and then a mount forces a new disk read.

I downloaded and used the toms linux on a disk..works great,
will be using that tool in the future.

yes it did boot on this machine, as a compleat system.

and yes am making some progress on the boot for this computer.

timkb4cq, has really done this on a 3.4.3 computer. a very great help. and i almost have it done here..

i can get the boot to come us with the standard menu (in color) and chosing windoz works fine. when mepis is chosen it
goes back to the ugle opening page,,list the mepis, but as yet havn't got it to boot mepis..thought what he showed, has really got me to understanding more of the boot process.
have been able to look at the one the install program makes which is ignored on boot, have looked at the one in boot/gurb which is normally used, (and they are different)
and have tried installing grub on the root part. but when i look it isn't there.

at this point i want to go to some of the other machines and see what i can do with them.

that was good info on the difference in the linux and windoz floppy, i was aware of some of it..some not.

thanks a bunch

larry

using the super file manager works great on getting control of the floppys, yes you are very correct , in the past some floppys also gave fits.

still not up on mepis yet, want to go to the other machines
and try some things with them. boots to windoz fine..

question ? which grub did you install...the one in boot/grub or did you get the one off the disk the install disk made which didn't work..or a combo of both? have tried many things and am going to try more.

thanks so very very much..

i know the time you have put in one this..

larry

When I installed Mepis 3.4-3 on this computer I didn't install grub to either root or mbr. I'd been booting using lilo from an old Mandrake install for a few years now, and it was already set up to boot Mandrake, Windows98, & Zenwalk so I just added Mepis there instead of installing grub.

However, whether or not you install grub to mbr or root at install time, the grub program is included in Mepis so you can install a grub boot sector on a hard drive or floppy disk.

I copied the stage1, stage2 and message files to the floppy from the hard drive partition I have Mepis installed in. If I was accessing that partition using the LiveCD those files would appear at /mnt/hda3/boot/grub

The menu.lst file I made up by adjusting the /boot/grub/menu.lst.example to match what I had installed.

After getting all those files on the floppy, I installed grub to the (unmounted) floppy disk from a Konsole window using the commands:

su
enter your password here to become root
grub
Then at the grub prompt type the commands:
root (fd0)
setup (fd0)
quit

Since you are able to boot into Windows but not into Mepis using the boot disk, there must be something wrong with your menu.lst file. Something's not matching up right.

The easiest way for me to tell what the matter is would be for you to copy and paste the directory listing of the /boot directory of the Hard Drive install of Mepis, the /etc/fstab file (also from the Hard Drive install) and the /boot/grub/menu.lst file from your boot floppy.