Subj : Making a boot floppy
To   : comp.os.linux
From : Mike Fontenot
Date : Tue Nov 16 2004 12:02 am


I tried to make a boot floppy using the command

  dd if=/boot/vmlinuz-2.2.19pre17 of=/dev/fd0

(where the in_file name is the name of my kernel,
which boots fine from hard disk (using LILO)).

That command apeared to work fine, and reported
"1956+1 records in" (and the same for "records out").

But when I try to boot from that floppy, it gives
the usual message (something indicating that it is
transfering data from the floppy into memory) followed
by about 3 rows of dots, then it goes into an infinite
loop, repeatedly writing 5 short lines of text to the
monitor.  To stop it, I have to power-down, which
fortunately doesn't seem to cause any problem with
a subsequent boot from hard disk of the same kernel.
The size of the kernel is 1,001,473 bytes, which
I think should fit on my floppy (about 1.4 Mbyte).

When I tried the same thing with an earlier kernel
(vmlinuz-2.0.32, with 446,281 bytes), the dd command
reported 871+1 records in and out, and I was able
to boot just fine from that floppy.

Anyone know what's wrong?

	Mike Fontenot

.