Post #154,558
5/10/04 8:48:04 PM
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Create boot floppy on a Mac???
I have an elderly x86 box that will be used as a Linux [downloading Fedora now].
The box has a SCSI CDROM drive that cannot [AFAIK] be made bootable - so I need a boot floppy.
I've downloaded the image - but my Mac does not like using the 'dd' utility to copy the image to the [external USB floppy] disk [the disk image opens without difficulty in the Finder]
Any ideas on generating a boot floppy _without_ a Linux or Windoze box?
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Post #154,559
5/10/04 8:50:47 PM
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what kind of adapter?
on the older boxes watch the boot carefully looking to see if the scsi bios loads. Usually here ids a setting that turns on the bios that trap IO calls and can be made bootable. thanx, bill
Time for Lord Stanley to get a Tan questions, help? [link|mailto:pappas@catholic.org|email pappas at catholic.org]
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Post #154,560
5/10/04 8:59:56 PM
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Re: what kind of adapter?
Adapted SCSI II [AIC7870 PCI]
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Post #154,564
5/10/04 9:30:58 PM
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when you see the scsi bios flash press alt A
that should pop a menu (or is it alt shift A the flash will tell you.) get back if there is a menu and whats on it. The older Bios intercepted Interupt 14 hdd controller interup and redirect to the card. thanx. bill
Time for Lord Stanley to get a Tan questions, help? [link|mailto:pappas@catholic.org|email pappas at catholic.org]
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Post #154,567
5/10/04 9:56:34 PM
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Re: when you see the scsi bios flash press alt A
Tried that, Enabled the BIOS, set things to send 'start'
Confirmed that it sees the drive - but still will not boot.
It looks like the motherboard BIOS is too old for the application [will not take 16383 cyl hard drive]
Time to raid a friend's junk pile for a not quite so old ATX box [and put the SCSI disks [all 5 gig worth] back into this one]
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Post #154,568
5/10/04 9:59:57 PM
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partition into 1024 cylenders, put a dos partition on it
use a floppy with fdisk, partition into 1024 cylendors and it should boot. thanx,' bill
Time for Lord Stanley to get a Tan questions, help? [link|mailto:pappas@catholic.org|email pappas at catholic.org]
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Post #154,569
5/10/04 10:09:06 PM
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The booting device sequence is in BIOS menu.
Have you looked at the options there?
You should be able to see what key to press to enter the BIOS menu while the memory tests are runnung. On my machines (with Asus mobos) it is the Delete key.
Alex
There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't.
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Post #154,622
5/11/04 12:47:05 PM
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Ancient Hardware
Well it seems the old Adaptec SCSI controller's BIOS will not allow booting from a CDROM. The Motherboard BIOS was designed back when 212 meg was a *huge* disk drive.
I've obtained a 'less obsolete' ATX formfactor box [don't know the CPU, but its likely much faster than the P133 in the other box]
Now all I need to do is scrounge some RAM [probably retail] then I should have a working x86 box - this one should boot from CDrom, sidestepping the original difficulty in generating a boot floppy from a .img file on a Mac
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Post #154,570
5/10/04 10:18:48 PM
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Making boot floppy on a PC.
[link|http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-9-Manual/install-guide/s1-steps-install-cdrom.html#S2-STEPS-MAKE-DISKS|Red Hat] info on making a boot floppy (assuming the PC has an MS OS). Also, assuming you can get the relevant files to that PC first.
Alex
There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't.
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