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Thread: OS boot from floppy

  1. #1
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    OS boot from floppy

    Hey, I have fianally had the time to try to install SuSE again. So I choose to put everything on the external HD, not changing the MBR of my main drive. After the first CD was installed (of 5), It restarted the computer, which loaded into windows . Now I have no way to continue the installation because when I try 'boot from removable device' it still detects the main drive first. Now to the question. Is there any way to write some sort of script on a floppy to boot to the external HD, because I don't want to change the main MBR. Last time I tried that I had to reformat the drive. I'm not sure if the installation is finished because it said sonething like the base installation is complete, but there are still 4 more CDs to install, so i don't know if thats just software or what. Any help would be appreciated.

  2. #2
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    have you tried just putting in the 1st cd again. and see if it will let you continue with the install

    what version of Suse.?

  3. #3
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    Good Day,

    If you don't want to change the MBR, during the SuSE install you can most likely select a "boot from floppy option". However first I'd check your BIOs and change the boot sequence to see if the External Hdd can go first. Although the MBR on your first drive doesn't see the SuSE, the boot loader (Grub) on the other HDD most likely does and may give you an option to select which OS you want to boot.

    cheers
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  4. #4
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    Hi

    If the other OS in your primary HDD is windows XP then there will be no need to reformat the HDD because the recovery option in the XP CD gives you the option of running fixboot and fixmbr to fix and restore the active windows installation.

    Even Suse 10.0 CD gives an option of reinstalling the GRUB loader to again detect and add any active OS installations.

    This way there is no possible way of screwing things up. However if you still want to continue without disturbing the existing MBR just select the boot from floppy option during the installtion of suse as mentioned by Relyt.

    As you have installed one CD of Suse the partition will now be in ext2 or ext3 (depending on what you chose) which is not detected by windows. Using tool like Partition Magic you can reformat it and add it to the free space for windows. As acidtone pointed out see what happens when you pop in the first cd again.

    As an advice install the minimum GUI when you are installing suse. That way if you still screw up you'll take less time to know. A 5 CD full install of suse takes a lot of time and if things still go bad the time and effort goes down the drain. The packages can be updated in Suse as and when required later on.
    \"The Smilie Wars\" ... just arrived after the great crusades

    .... computers come to the rescue .... ah technology at last has some use.

  5. #5
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    I'm installing SuSE 9, because I downloaded and burned it like a week before the new one came out, and i don't feel like downloading it all over. Anyway, is it possible to choose boot from Floppy if I have already installed the 1st CD? (I chose safe install, 3rd option down because the normal install wouldn't load)

    I am going to put in the CD again and see what happens...

  6. #6
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    Ok, I got everything working, SuSE running and all. What happened was I loaded the CD, then I went back to safe install, which was actually the 5th item, and since it was at the beginning of the install, I chose abort. Then I got this error, which then sent me to this new menu I've never seen before. In this menu I chose something like Boot installation from drive. Then I chose sda6 which is where i installed the first CD. It loaded a few seconds, then I finished the installation! Now I still need to be able to load SuSE from a floppy, but now I don't know how. I hope I don't have to reinstall to be able to configure it that way..

  7. #7
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    Ive looked around in SuSE and found no option to make a floppy to boot from. (I'm still just getting used to it though) The only way I can get it to boot is to put in the SuSE CD and choose boot from sda. Is it possible to write your own script that just runs the boot file on the HD? Or doesn't it work that way?

  8. #8
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    Good Evening,

    Ever since about version 8.0, a floppy disk does not have sufficient space for all the start-up files. You can create a "Boot CD" if you desire. Just enter "Creating Boot CD" into the KDE Help Center Menu and follow the instruction. Pretty easy, however I'd be more apt to let "Grub" write to the MBR of the first disk. It is reverseable if something goes amiss.

    cheers
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  9. #9
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    Thanks very much Relyt, im going to try that.

  10. #10
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    I went into YaST control center, and went to the system tab, which gave me the option of making 8 boot floppies, but no CD choice (I didn't know there was a second pannel for admin earlier ). I really don't want to do this..is there any other optIon?

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