I have been running Red Hat 6.2 for a while and, finally, decided to upgrade
my operating system. I recently acquired a boot CD from Gentoo Linux. Having
changed the BIOS settings for first boot device to be my CD the computer
flatly refuses to use of the CD as a boot disk. It used to work, and I'm
pretty sure it has something to do with how Red Hat has installed
/sbin/lilo. The current lilo.conf reads

boot=/dev/hda1

map=/boot/map

install=/boot/boot.b

prompt

timeout=50

linear

default=linux

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.2.14-5.0

label=linux

read-only

root=/dev/hda5

The only way I can get the computer to accept a CD installer is to boot from
a floppy disk, which unfortunately has not been provided by Gentoo.

I guess the easy answer is to create a boot floppy, but since I do not know
how to do this, any advice would be appreciated on how to get around the
problem.

Alan Watson wrote:
> I have been running Red Hat 6.2 for a while and, finally, decided to upgrade
> my operating system. I recently acquired a boot CD from Gentoo Linux. Having
> changed the BIOS settings for first boot device to be my CD the computer
> flatly refuses to use of the CD as a boot disk.

Maybe it's not a boot CD...

> It used to work, and I'm
> pretty sure it has something to do with how Red Hat has installed
> /sbin/lilo.

Most certainly not.

Booting from CDROM involves using a floppy image at the "start" of the
CDROM (try googling for "eltorito boot" for further details) and this is
done at a moment when BIOS has not given control to anything that might
reside on hard disk (or whatever boot device).

> The only way I can get the computer to accept a CD installer is to boot from
> a floppy disk, which unfortunately has not been provided by Gentoo.
>
> I guess the easy answer is to create a boot floppy, but since I do not know
> how to do this, any advice would be appreciated on how to get around the
> problem.

You could try putting this image (
ftp://ftp.slackware.at/slackware-9.1...s/sbootmgr.dsk ) on a floppy.

sbootmgr.dsk
This nifty little tool allows selecting various devices to boot
from a menu, and even allows booting a CD-ROM in machines where
the BIOS doesn't support it (or it's supposed to support it, but
it just doesn't work). If you have trouble booting the
Slackware CD-ROM, you might try writing this image to a floppy,
booting it, and then selecting your CD-ROM drive as the boot
device.

To achieve putting an image file on a floppy disk you can either use the
magnificent dd like this (on Linux):
dd if=sbootmgr.dsk of=/dev/fd0

Or (still in Linux) ask the gentle cat:
cat sbootmgr.dsk > /dev/fd0

Or if you're a Windows addict, you can use one of the versions
(depending on which version of Windows,you've got) of rawrite that
reside in this directory ftp://ftp.slackware.at/slackware-9.1/rootdisks/
like this:
rawrite sbootmgr.dsk a:

Hope it helps...

> I have been running Red Hat 6.2 for a while and, finally, decided to
> upgrade my operating system. I recently acquired a boot CD from Gentoo
> Linux.

How did you aqcuire it? burned it yourself? Did you do it correctly?

> Having changed the BIOS settings for first boot device to be my
> CD the computer flatly refuses to use of the CD as a boot disk. It used
> to work, and I'm pretty sure it has something to do with how Red Hat has
> installed /sbin/lilo.

LILO has nothing to do with it.

> The only way I can get the computer to accept a CD installer is to boot
> from a floppy disk, which unfortunately has not been provided by Gentoo.

Is it not on the CD?
RH has a directory images, that contain bootfloppy images.
Just put it on the floppy. ie. jus cat, cp or dd it directly to /dev/fd0,
not to /mnt/floppy!

Eric

Alan Watson wrote:

> I have been running Red Hat 6.2 for a while and, finally, decided to
> upgrade my operating system. I recently acquired a boot CD from Gentoo
> Linux. Having changed the BIOS settings for first boot device to be my CD
> the computer flatly refuses to use of the CD as a boot disk

..... and how was this CD "acquired" ? did YOU burn it? if
you got it from someone else, have they confirmed it's a
bootable CD?
..
--
/// Michael J. Tobler: motorcyclist, surfer, skydiver, \\\
\\\ and author: "Inside Linux", "C++ HowTo", "C++ Unleashed" ///
A LISP programmer knows the value of everything,
but the cost of nothing.

Thanks to everyone. I downloaded Smart Boot Manager and it works a treat. I
am still a little puzzled as the CD was provided by Gentoo and boots quite
happily on another computer I have without the need for a boot floppy.

Best regards,

Alan

"AlV" <skweek@no.spam> wrote in message
news:bmo943$git$1@news-reader5.wanadoo.fr...
> Alan Watson wrote:
> > I have been running Red Hat 6.2 for a while and, finally, decided to
upgrade
> > my operating system. I recently acquired a boot CD from Gentoo Linux.
Having
> > changed the BIOS settings for first boot device to be my CD the computer
> > flatly refuses to use of the CD as a boot disk.
>
> Maybe it's not a boot CD...
>
> > It used to work, and I'm
> > pretty sure it has something to do with how Red Hat has installed
> > /sbin/lilo.
>
> Most certainly not.
>
> Booting from CDROM involves using a floppy image at the "start" of the
> CDROM (try googling for "eltorito boot" for further details) and this is
> done at a moment when BIOS has not given control to anything that might
> reside on hard disk (or whatever boot device).
>
> > The only way I can get the computer to accept a CD installer is to boot
from
> > a floppy disk, which unfortunately has not been provided by Gentoo.
> >
> > I guess the easy answer is to create a boot floppy, but since I do not
know
> > how to do this, any advice would be appreciated on how to get around the
> > problem.
>
> You could try putting this image (
> ftp://ftp.slackware.at/slackware-9.1...s/sbootmgr.dsk ) on a floppy.
>
> sbootmgr.dsk
> This nifty little tool allows selecting various devices to boot
> from a menu, and even allows booting a CD-ROM in machines where
> the BIOS doesn't support it (or it's supposed to support it, but
> it just doesn't work). If you have trouble booting the
> Slackware CD-ROM, you might try writing this image to a floppy,
> booting it, and then selecting your CD-ROM drive as the boot
> device.
>
> To achieve putting an image file on a floppy disk you can either use the
> magnificent dd like this (on Linux):
> dd if=sbootmgr.dsk of=/dev/fd0
>
> Or (still in Linux) ask the gentle cat:
> cat sbootmgr.dsk > /dev/fd0
>
> Or if you're a Windows addict, you can use one of the versions
> (depending on which version of Windows,you've got) of rawrite that
> reside in this directory ftp://ftp.slackware.at/slackware-9.1/rootdisks/
> like this:
> rawrite sbootmgr.dsk a:
>
> Hope it helps...
>