The easiest way to make a usable (and bootable) image of a boot floppy is with dd. Use "dd if=/dev/fd0 of=boot.img bs=512 count=2440" to create the file boot.img that is an exact copy of the floppy. That will create a bootable image of the floppy that then can be put back onto another floppy using rawrite from dos/windows, or dd on linux. Barry Yu wrote: >1. I made a bootup floppy with mkbootdisk `uname -r` in a fat16 format floppy and tested it - it works fine. >2. I copied all the files in this floppy into my data partition(Fat32) with cp /mnt/floppy/* /mnt/f32_data/ , > used ls -l /mnt/f32_data and can see them all in new place; > boot.msg > initrd.img > ldlinux.sys > syslinux.cfg > vmlinuz >3. And then I used another new floppy which formatted in f16 and copied all files from data partition into it by > cp /mnt/f32_data/* /mnt/floppy (This is the second new floppy), used ls -l can seen them all (5 files) in the floppy. >4. I used this second floppy ( all 5 files I copied from /mnt/f32_data/ ) to boot FC1 and I saw the message; > "Non-System disk or disk error. Replace and press any key when ready" - This floppy simply just can't boot! >5. I used this same floppy and boot up into FC1, issued commad mkbootdisk `uname -r`, and then I used it to boot, > it works - This indicated that the floppy itself physically is useable. >6. I compared files in the bootable floppy and contents in my f32_data folder that has the files boot.msg, initrd.img, > ldlinux.sys, syslinux.cfg, vmlinuz, both file names and file size are absolutely the same. The result tells one thing; > Only the floppy made by FC1 with bootdisk `uname -r' is bootable, if you transfer or copy files in this floppy into > another floppy even the files are there afterwards, the new floppy is not bootable. >I want copy all contents in the bootable floppy into my data storage partition, and copy them back into a blank floppy in case I need - I had bad experience in open a blend new box of floppy and 3 consecutive floppy even not workable at all! I must prepare if the current boot floppy one day is gone. Moreever, I really want to know above copy process what have I missed that caused the new floppy not bootable even with correct contents in it (At least I can't see what I had missed). >Thanks for helping. > The boot sector must be written for booting from linux, and a floppy that is bootable from linux is not readable from windows. What you did wrong was writing the files onto a dos diskette instead of making a bootable disk. Even a dos diskette is not bootable if the sys command has not been used to make it bootable. > >
