What is up with the boot disk?

[Guest jmsuthar]

During the Mandrake Installation procedure it asks if you want to create a boot disk. I say yes and insert a blank floppy disk. Now I don't like my system to have a dual boot so I don't want LILO or Grub to write to the MBR on the hard drive. I can't have a dual boot becuase other people use it and they get confused or screw up something. *Don't ask how/why*

 

When I try to boot up Mandrake from the boot disk it outputs some crazy error, like could not find vmlinuz or something like that. When I try to use the Mandrake Installation CD to boot I have to goto rescue mode, but there are some limitations to the rescue mode so I don't want to use that.

 

I just a want boot floppy that can boot up Mandrake. Why doesn't the floppy that Mandrake creates during installation work?

 

- thanx in advance, Jigar

[ramfree17]

there has been already some reports of the 9.1's incapability to create a working bootdisk. i dont know if this is already fixed but you could try searching for the thread on how to manually create a bootdisk. it should be fun to learn that too. :)

 

 

ciao!

[bvc]

Welcome!

Unfortunately there are bugfixes/updates for mcc to fix that, which does you no good at install. I don't see a fix at install here > http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/errata.php3 I believe there's a way to make a boot floppy from windows, but I don't have a link for that. As far as booting CD1>F1>rescue>mount your partitions under /mnt>go to console>chroot /mnt goes you could try pmpatricks tip > http://www.mandrakeusers.org/viewtopic.php?t=4324

[DragonMage]

It's a bug. When you create the disk during mandrake installation, the procedure has a bug in it, making your bootdisk a bit useless.

Anyway, upgrade the mandrake utilities to the newest version and try making the boot disk after the upgrade. The full info of that bugfix can be found http://www.mandrakeusers.org/viewtopic.php?t=4330

 

Anyway, hope it solves your problem.

[pmpatrick]

Try reinstalling with lilo; update through Mandrake Control Center(mcc)>Software Management>Update; after installing the updates fixing the bugs make a boot floppy in mcc>Boot>Drake Floppy; test your floppy to be sure you can boot; Then uninstall lilo by running the following from a console as root:

 

# lilo -u

 

This will restore your windows mbr and lilo will be gone.

[Guest jmsuthar]

OK, thanks everyone. I will manually make a boot disk and update the MCC and try to make a boot disk with the Mandrake utility. I will see which one works ;). I went to www.tldp.org to find out how to make a boot disk, but it was too complicated. Thanks again everyone.

 

- later, Jigar

[ramfree17]

I went to www.tldp.org to find out how to make a boot disk, but it was too complicated. Thanks again everyone.

 

we have a more newbie-friendly step in here somewhere (if somebody hasnt posted the link yet). its already step by step so it shouldnt be that hard.

 

and one more thing, why not just use windows as the default os in your bootloader, give it a short delay (5 seconds will suit just fine) and edit /etc/motd so when somebody logs on it will display the message (you picked to boot linux, to reboot press ctrl-alt-del). that will save you the trouble of relying on a fragile floppy.

 

btw, anybody here have tried making a boot cd? im thinking it should be doable with those 50mb little cdr thats being sold in computer stores.

 

ciao!