Creating a Floppy Boot Disk

If your system cannot boot from the CD-ROM you will need to create a floppy boot disk. The CD-ROM contains all of the image files and utility programs needed to do so.

The floppy boot disk images are in the CD-ROM's install/images/ directory.

The following is a list of different images and their respective installation methods:

cdrom.img

To install from a local IDE or SCSI CD-ROM drive.

network.img and network_drivers.img

To install from an NFS, FTP, HTTP repository on your local LAN or via a PPPoE (DSL line) network connection. The network configuration of the machine on which you wish to install may be manual or automatic. Please make sure that you make both floppies.

pcmcia.img

Use this image if the installation medium is reached through a PCMCIA card (network, CD-ROM, etc.).

[Note]Note

Some PCMCIA devices now use common network drivers. If the PCMCIA device does not work, try again with network.img and network_drivers.img.

hd_grub.img

Use this image if you want to perform the installation from a hard disk. You need to copy the contents of the CD onto the hard drive (either on a FAT, ext2FS, ext3FS or ReiserFS partition). At the hd_grub customization site there is a little tool which may prove helpful for customizing your boot floppy.

The images/alternatives/* directory provides more or less the same boot images, but with a different (older) kernel. Actually it provides a 2.4 kernel (Mandrakelinux 10.1 onwards uses kernel 2.6) which might help you to get started on older systems.

Creating a Boot Disk With Windows

In order to do so, you need to use the rawwrite program. You will find it in the CD-ROM's dosutils/ directory.

You may have noticed that there is a DOS version of the same program called rawrite. In fact, this is the original version of the program. rawwrite is a graphical front-end to it.

Start the program, as shown in Figure 2.1, “The Rawwrite Program”.

Figure 2.1. The Rawwrite Program

The Rawwrite Program

Select the boot image to be copied and the target device. In almost every case, the target device is the A: drive (that is, the first floppy disk drive).

Then if you have not already done so, insert an empty disk into your chosen floppy drive and click on the Write button. When completed click on the Exit button: now you have a floppy boot disk to install your Mandrakelinux distribution.

Creating a Floppy Boot Disk From GNU/Linux

If you already have GNU/Linux installed (another version, or on another machine, etc.), then carry out the following steps:

  1. Mount the CD-ROM, if needed. Let us suppose that the mount point is /mnt/cdrom.

  2. Log in as root (to do so, open a terminal window, run the su command and enter root's password).

  3. Insert an empty diskette into the floppy drive and type:

    $ dd if=/mnt/cdrom/images/cdrom.img of=/dev/fd0 bs=512

    When this operation is completed, your floppy boot disk will be ready for use.

    [Note]Note

    Replace /dev/fd0 with /dev/fd1 if you are using the second floppy drive and, of course, the name of the image with the one you want.