AussieJohn Posted November 20, 2003 Report Share Posted November 20, 2003 Hello all. Am I missing something here ?. Obviously many have installed Mandrake9.2 by now . Probably 100's of thousands. I have installed same as an upgrade and also as a clean install many times and have never been able to make a boot disk (always getting an error message saying insufficient space) and checking up on things I find that this is known to Mandrake and they suggest a remedy in their ERRATA . I have tried to follow their damned vague suggestion of using the SUPERFORMAT process to turn a !.44mbs floppy into something like 1.7mbs. I have had no success no matter what variations I have tried. I eventually got a process started but it would error stop on each progressing CYLINDER format and eventually reached cylinder 80 (of the83 cylinders selected) and would not progress any further (This was a new floppy and first formatted to FAT). This took over 12hours and still finally would not make a boot floppy for me. java script:emoticon('') I find seemingly nothing about this problem here in Mandrakeusers.org. 1. Is this because this is so easily fixed that no one feels the need to mention it (maybe I am dumb and missing something simple here) ???. 2. Or is it as I suspect, no one makes boot disks anymore ???. If someone knows how to make a larger capacity floppy then could you please explain the method to me in a fully descriptive form not the usual abbreviated notes that are usually only understood by an experienced computer buff. Hope someone can help. Cheers. John (69yrs young) http://www.mandrakeusers.org/style_images/1/icon14.gif Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted November 20, 2003 Report Share Posted November 20, 2003 I think mostly; 2. because not many use bootdisk anymore, because with CD1 rescue mode, a bootdisk is not needed. Sorry, I do not have an answer to your prob. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AussieJohn Posted November 20, 2003 Author Report Share Posted November 20, 2003 Okay thanks BVC for your prompt reply. However if anyone out there knows how to solve this problem then I would still like to hear from you. This is because I still want to use a boot disk as the means of starting up this particular install because I am experimenting with it and do not want to involve it in a bootloader setup. I have my Mand9.1 and Win2000Pro as my working OSs and do not want them screwed up by my playing around in Mand9.2. So if anyone can help, then thanks in anticipation. Cheers. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted November 20, 2003 Report Share Posted November 20, 2003 I appreciate what you are saying, but I have ran as many as 4 os's from lilo, two of which were Mandrake distros, and have never "screwed" any of them up! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmpatrick Posted November 20, 2003 Report Share Posted November 20, 2003 This thread is for you: http://www.mandrakeusers.org/index.php?showtopic=9014 If you follow those directions you should have no problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AussieJohn Posted November 21, 2003 Author Report Share Posted November 21, 2003 PMPATRICK you are a thorough gentleman. Thank you sincerely. This is precicely the type of help I was hoping for and expressed in the terms I can easily follow. To the other gentlemen, thanks also. However I am not really concerned with how it is not necessary to use a boot disk nor that one can use LILO for multiple Linux OSs. I prefer grub and it is very difficult to set up grub with 2 Linux OSs (at least it is for me) I will let you know PMPATRICK, what results I get. Cheers. John (69yrs young) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AussieJohn Posted November 22, 2003 Author Report Share Posted November 22, 2003 PMPATRICK. Hello again. Just to let you know that your procedure details worked PERFECTLY. I have made 8 reformatted floppys to the value you suggested and have used 2 of them already with instant success. Because of your detailed information rather than abbreviated info I was not only able to do what i originally asked but I have learn't more as well. When I looked at the /dev/fd0 then I saw the fd0u1722 referred to in your info and then realised that the floppy could be formatted to larger values by selecting one of the higher numbered fd0u.... . I realised that these contain the full instructions for formatting to that particular size and although I will not be delving into this kind of info it is nice to understand a little more how things work in the overall scheme of things. May I be so bold as to suggest you put your instructions into the FAQ section of this and other forums. Yours is the kind of answer format most of us really need. Thanks again and cheers. John(69yrs young) :D :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmpatrick Posted November 22, 2003 Report Share Posted November 22, 2003 Thank you for your kind words. :D Expressions of thanks are welcomed by all who post help here and let other users know when something works which is also very useful. Your right; you can format a floppy up to 2MB with fdutils. However, your bios won't recognize higher than what I gave and will refuse to boot off of higher formatted floppies. At least that's my experience with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AussieJohn Posted November 27, 2003 Author Report Share Posted November 27, 2003 Hello again PMPATRICK. Well I have succeeded in making quite a number of large value floppys now (1.9mbs as you mentioned) and have successfully and repeatedly made boot disks in every occassion I have installed 9.2 on my machine ( some 9 times so far and still counting) and it doesn't matter whether Grub is installed on hda or the MBR has been cleared, i STILL CANNOT BOOT FROM THE FLOPPY. Is MANDRAKES ERRATTA advice really a huge lie if it knows that even when you make a floppy disk capable of containing the boot up files, that you are unlikely to be able to boot from it anyways ???. Your experience seems to support this view. Or does someone else out there Know how to make the machine boot the floppy or should I E-Mail ASUS for info on how to do this ???. What has me mystified is that I Reinstalled Mandy9.1 on a different set of partitions and made 2 boot disks, one with standard 1.44 and one with a newly made 1.73 and I then tested booting from both floppys some 4 times each and had NO trouble from either one, certainly not the 1.73 formatted one which I repeatedly rechecked with mdir to be certain it stayed 1.73mbs and had not somehow reverted to 1.44mbs. From this it would seem that the bios can handle a larger than 1.44mbs floppy disk. I am starting to believe the problem really is Mandrake 9.2 not giving the floppys the correct information and this despite the fact that I have installed the latest bug fixes up to date 24/11/2003. I have just downloaded the draxtools 25/11/2003 and will be installing it in a short while so I will soon know if this fixes the problem or not. All I know is that I am going to stick with this. Cheers. John (69yrs young) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmpatrick Posted November 28, 2003 Report Share Posted November 28, 2003 The only extended format that most bioses will handle is "/dev/fd0u1722" which I believe is about 1.7MB. I never had any luck with booting from the larger ones even though I was able to read and write to the 2MB ones without problems in linux. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Counterspy Posted November 29, 2003 Report Share Posted November 29, 2003 (edited) My compliments on an excellent piece. Do I have your permission to post it at http://www.linuxiso.org/forums/index.php in the Mandrake section? Counterspy Edited November 29, 2003 by Counterspy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmpatrick Posted November 29, 2003 Report Share Posted November 29, 2003 Of course. That goes without asking if you feel it will be of help to others. But I appreciate the fact that you did ask. By the way, welcome back. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AussieJohn Posted November 29, 2003 Author Report Share Posted November 29, 2003 Thanks PMPATRICK for your extra info. I have to admit that while the MAN9.1 on a boot disk formatted to 1.73mbs worked, I did not try the same routine with a 1.93mbs disk in MAN9.1. I am about to reinstall 9.1 on a spare set of partitions and I will try it out to see if it works. If it does them it will reinforce my belief that MAN9.2 is the problem and not the boot procedure. One thing I especially notice is that Boot disks in 9.1 show the name of the man that wrote the boot program then you have the two progress bars as it is loading. With the 9.2 disks this does not occur . There is a pause then it goes straight to the MBR, shows GRUB then on as usual. (or into Win2000 if the MBR has been cleared) I also note that in the BIOS of my A7N8X-Deluxe mainboard there is a setting for selecting 1.44mb or 2.88mb floppys and it is currently now set to the 2.88mb setting. The Windows 98 boot floppy still works AOK seemingly normally. And thanks COUNTERSPY for your moral support on another subject currently being discussed. So you are a young 66. Live long, healthy and happy like myself. By the way PMPATRICK and COUNTERSPY what parts of the Planet are you pleased to call home, obviously mine is Australia, state of Queensland, city of Cairns. Will let you know of my next tests. Cheers. John (69yrs young) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Counterspy Posted November 29, 2003 Report Share Posted November 29, 2003 (edited) I am from Windsor, Ontario, Canada. You might be interested to know a little history here and the extended partitioning first became an issue with the release of Windows 3.1 when Microsoft formatted the disks to 1.6 Mb. This lead to a flood of formatters that would go up to 2.0 Mb. some of which are no doubt still available on the net. Oh, BTW, thanks for the permission. It is now posted there. Counterspy Edited November 29, 2003 by Counterspy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphitus Posted November 29, 2003 Report Share Posted November 29, 2003 For me, the computer boot process goes CDROM -- HDD -- FLoppy So lilo appears before the floopy. I think this is also the default for most ocmputers nowadays. Because of this mandrake put a floppy option in lilo so i could boot from a floppy. Does this help? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.