banjo Posted September 16, 2003 Report Share Posted September 16, 2003 OK I give up....... All I want to do is to make a rescue floppy. That ought to be pretty simple. Please don't send me out to Search, I have done that for months, and I have read all of it three times. I am a novice at Linux, but I have been using Unix for years (very little sysadmin tho'). So, I can understand instructions in unix-speak. Here is what I have tried: I made a "Rescue Floppy" at install time. But since I am using 9.1, the bug in the MCC made a floppy that does not work. OK fine. So I searched and got vectored off to the bootdisk-HOWTO document which has 52 pages of stuff to do...... starting with building a kernel. I read it, I understood most of it, but I really do not have time to do that right now (someday maybe after I get some more time under my belt on this thing) I just want to make a rescue floppy. OK fine. Another source told me to update MCC and that will get rid of the bug. Just how is that done? I went to the Control Center and I clicked Software=>Update, and my computer went off into internet Hell downloading "something" (it doesn't say what) and cannot be cancelled. Thirty minutes later I had to hang up on it. Just what is it doing? How do I get this update? (I hate fnWizards!). OK fine. So I went out to the mirrors for the Mandrake CC updates and I was faced with a huge number of packages to download with no real indication (at least to my ignorant eyes) of which ones I need to fix this bug. The page says it is better to do this "automatically" using the MCC, but........... how?.................... ...where?...................didn't I just try that trick? OK fine. I searched out minimal floppy systems on the net, but the docs on them are so vague that I have no idea whether or not they will work on my system (I have ext3 file system.... most of them tout ext2.......... will I be able to mount my hard disk using them?....) OK fine. End of rant. So here are my specific questions. 1). How exactly do I get this MCC update so that I can make a rescue floppy? I suppose that is the cleanest approach. I am on a modem, so terabyte downloads are not going to work for me. .........or................ 2). Where can I find a rescue image that I can be fairly well assured will work with Mandy 9.1 and my ext3 files? I don't want to damage my system messing around with outdated stuff. One page said that Mandrake has such an image on its download page, but I can't find it. 3). What the heck is MCC downloading when I click on the Update tool? Thanks in advance to all the great folks on this board. Sorry for the rant, but I am sooooo confused.. Banjo (_)=='=~ P.S. My goal is to learn enough so that I can answer these questions for other folks....................but for right now......... HELP!....... :shock: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted September 16, 2003 Report Share Posted September 16, 2003 Mandrake Control Center>Software Management>Mandrake Update Then it'll download for a long time (dialup) an updated source list of available pkgs for you currently installed software. No diff that Windows Update. When it is done, you will get a list of available updates. Choose the ones you want and Install. Which one's for MCC? Look for the drak stuff. drakconf draktools etc.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kmack Posted September 16, 2003 Report Share Posted September 16, 2003 Dialup can be a pain when you need a HUGE pile of updates! Sure relate to the frustration of the learning curve when you add in slow connection. To avoid the delays and hassle of long downloads, I use a cd service in SE Asia but I have not used one in USA. May I suggest that you either find someone with broadband to burn you a CD of the updates/patches or buy one from a service. Here's one I found that sells the 9.1 update CD Rom http://www.edmunds-enterprises.com/linux/c...dtl/product/155 For $1.50 you can update from the CD and avoid the internet traffic jam and not tie up your phone for HOURS downloading. We can help you setup your mdk update to use the cd to update rather than internet connection. That part is relatively easy. There are several options if you google with keywords: linux cdrom cheap you can browse and find one. This one even sells Mdk 9.2 rc2 so it is very up to date! In the meantime, you can always boot with CD1 and do some rescue things. Better yet, get Knoppix CD and it will boot and let you work on probems too. I don't rely on floppy boot rescue much anymore. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
banjo Posted September 16, 2003 Author Report Share Posted September 16, 2003 Thanks. I guess I was on the right track. Maybe I will try again some other time when I have more time to wait. If I could just find a rescue image that I could dd to the floppy this would be a lot easier. Banjo (_)=='=~ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
banjo Posted September 16, 2003 Author Report Share Posted September 16, 2003 Kmack, Thanks for the links. Maybe the CD is the way to go. I suppose this old dog is still stuck in the past with floppies and all. Can't fit much on one of those things any more. I will check it out. Banjo (_)=='=~ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted September 16, 2003 Report Share Posted September 16, 2003 B4 the drakstuff updates pmpatrick did a Tips and Tricks for a boot floppy. Didn't work for me but seem to for others. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Germ Posted September 16, 2003 Report Share Posted September 16, 2003 http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/system/re...ery/!INDEX.html If all you want to do is be able to boot your box if the boot sector is hosed. You should be able to do that with most any Linux boot floppy. You'll get a lot faster boot with the CD1. At the boot splash, instead of hitting Enter to install, hit F1 to go to a prompt. You can boot your box, or type "rescue" and hit enter to go to the rescue scripts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted September 16, 2003 Report Share Posted September 16, 2003 If you have a bootable Cd its much easier.... On the ext3 stuff. Youm can mount an ext3 as ext2 in an emergency, it just turns off the journaling etc. and you need to fsck it when you get it running again. Im just guessing but if you go to install CD 1 you have a directory with images .... you just dd that to the floppy (the one called floppy obviously). But this gives you a minimal bootable kernel and not much tools !! The CD is the way to go.... its so long since the time before last I did this that last time (for an old P100) I went through the same stuff as you! If you can use a bootable CD then Id stick with it otherwise you can dump your partition table and keep a copy on a couple of partitions and backed up to CD, just in case! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
banjo Posted September 16, 2003 Author Report Share Posted September 16, 2003 Thanks to all for the help. I do have a system which will boot from the CD. So after all of this, it appears that the solution was at my fingertips all along. But I also learned a heck of a lot about how Linux boots while I was researching this. 8) Banjo (_)=='=~ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest GorGor Posted September 22, 2003 Report Share Posted September 22, 2003 Hi I know this author has finished with this post but in case others are wondering heres the floppy solution http://www.mandrakeusers.org/viewtopic.php...ghlight=ldlinux Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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