From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds) Subject: Re: Need help creating a boot disk Date: 15 Mar 1992 10:40:24 GMT
In article <1992Mar15.064233.15653@athena.mit.edu> alsaggaf@ERL.MIT.EDU (Muhammad Saggaf) writes:
>In article <1992Mar15.042200.16669@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
>rahard@ee.umanitoba.ca (Budi Rahardjo) writes:
>>I've decided to try linux am having a problem creating a boot disk.
>>- downloaded rawrite.exe and bootimage (0.12 and 0.95)
>>- use rawrite to create boot disk, it say disk has 9 sectors
>> (I am using 360K disk on my XT to do this)
The problem here is that the linux boot-sequence asks the BIOS what kind
of drive you are running on, gets the answer "1.2M drive" and tries to
read 15 sectors/track. This obviously won't work. Use a high-denstity
diskette, and live with the fact that the kernel uses only 15% of the
capacity.
>I did the same. In my case, when I booted up with the bootimage
>diskette in my 360K drive a, I got the mesaage: "Loading ..... ". The
>dots went on for a while and then nothing happened, I didn't even get
>the above CX ... etc. message. I have a 386sx-25 (AMD) with 2MB of
>RAM. Any help is greatly appreciated.
Ok: this one is a totally unrelated problem. Now the bios reports the
correct kind of disk, so the system loading goes all right. After that
the bootup sequence tries to determine the root-disk type, and finds out
it's not a gigh-density floppy, and dies. It should really print out an
error-message, but there was no space left in the boot-sector, so it
doesn't, it just goes into a loop waiting for a reboot.
If you have only a 360kB drive, I don't see how to install linux. The
root-disk simply won't fit on 360kB - even 1.2M is a bit tight. If you
have a bigger B: drive, you might swap cables, and use that as A:
Linus