OK, I'm in the last throws of upgrading all my machines, and when I've
finished I won't have any with a floppy drive any more.

Before that happens though, I'm planning on burning a couple of
'rescue' CDs that I can boot from. I have enough boot floppies lying
around, and I know how to extract them to provide the El Torito
(couldn't they have picked a better Mexican restaurant <G>) boot
image.

But my concern is, how can I maintain that image after the last floppy
drive hits /dev/null. I'm sure that at some time I'll need to add a
driver to config.sys or autoexec.bat (I know, but I do have a couple
of WinBlows machines for the wife and kids). But I will say, the DOS
image is IBM's PC DOS, not Micro$hafts. Go ReXX.

Are there any programs out there than can 'manipulate' the boot image.
Or am I worrying needlessly.

Also, has anyone any experience of using -eltorito-alt-boot. If so,
how does that work. Do you just specify another -b <bootimage> after
the switch. And if you want more, do you just keep repeating
-eltorito-alt-boot and -b <bootimage> ad nauseum.

Cheers,
Eddie

On Wed, 31 Dec 2003 12:48:20 -0800, Trouble@Mill thoughtfully wrote:

> OK, I'm in the last throws of upgrading all my machines, and when I've
> finished I won't have any with a floppy drive any more.
>
> Before that happens though, I'm planning on burning a couple of 'rescue'
> CDs that I can boot from. I have enough boot floppies lying around, and I
> know how to extract them to provide the El Torito (couldn't they have
> picked a better Mexican restaurant <G>) boot image.
>
> But my concern is, how can I maintain that image after the last floppy
> drive hits /dev/null. I'm sure that at some time I'll need to add a
> driver to config.sys or autoexec.bat (I know, but I do have a couple of
> WinBlows machines for the wife and kids). But I will say, the DOS image
> is IBM's PC DOS, not Micro$hafts. Go ReXX.
>
> Are there any programs out there than can 'manipulate' the boot image. Or
> am I worrying needlessly.
>
> Also, has anyone any experience of using -eltorito-alt-boot. If so, how
> does that work. Do you just specify another -b <bootimage> after the
> switch. And if you want more, do you just keep repeating
> -eltorito-alt-boot and -b <bootimage> ad nauseum.
>
> Cheers,
> Eddie

From what I remember about El Torito. You placed the bootimage in a path
and the remainder of the files for the CDs in another path. Then the El
Torito creates a bootable floppy.

However, if your wife's Winblows PC has Ahead Nero 5.x the I suggest using
that to make as many bootable CDs as you think you need.

In article <nic6vvsjlr2c0fhvbo32d892tb9l7b4p2l@4ax.com>, Trouble@Mill wrote:

> But my concern is, how can I maintain that image after the last floppy
> drive hits /dev/null.

Why do you need a floppy drive to maintain a bootable CD image?
I've created dozens upon dozens of bootable CDs, and never once
used a floppy drive in the process.

> I'm sure that at some time I'll need to add a driver to
> config.sys or autoexec.bat (I know, but I do have a couple of
> WinBlows machines for the wife and kids). But I will say, the
> DOS image is IBM's PC DOS, not Micro$hafts. Go ReXX.

Now I'm completely baffled. What does DOS and config.sys have
to do with anything?

> Are there any programs out there than can 'manipulate' the boot image.
> Or am I worrying needlessly.

Sure. You can mount either a CD image or a floppy image and do
whatever you want to with all the normal file manipulation
tools.

> Also, has anyone any experience of using -eltorito-alt-boot. If so,
> how does that work. Do you just specify another -b <bootimage> after
> the switch. And if you want more, do you just keep repeating
> -eltorito-alt-boot and -b <bootimage> ad nauseum.

Dunno that one.

--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! If you STAY in China,
at I'll give you 4,000 BUSHELS
visi.com of "ATOMIC MOUSE" pencil
sharpeners!!

"Trouble@Mill" wrote:
>
> OK, I'm in the last throws of upgrading all my machines, and when I've
> finished I won't have any with a floppy drive any more.
>
> Before that happens though, I'm planning on burning a couple of
> 'rescue' CDs that I can boot from. I have enough boot floppies lying
> around, and I know how to extract them to provide the El Torito
> (couldn't they have picked a better Mexican restaurant <G>) boot
> image.
>
> But my concern is, how can I maintain that image after the last floppy
> drive hits /dev/null. I'm sure that at some time I'll need to add a
> driver to config.sys or autoexec.bat (I know, but I do have a couple
> of WinBlows machines for the wife and kids). But I will say, the DOS
> image is IBM's PC DOS, not Micro$hafts. Go ReXX.
>
> Are there any programs out there than can 'manipulate' the boot image.
> Or am I worrying needlessly.
>

Very simple:

# mount -t vfat [or msdos] -o loop /path/to/your/floppyimage /mnt/floppy
# cp /path/to/your/dos/driver /mnt/floppy
# vi /mnt/floppy/config.sys
# umount /mnt/floppy

etc.

Be careful not to delete or move IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS, or IBM's
DOS kernel files (sorry, forgot the files' names...)

OK, it gets a bit more complicated, if your image is not (yet)
bootable, i.e. it needs the functionality of SYS.COM.

I did this once w/the help of dosemu: booted dosemu's vm
from one image, and issued "SYS B:" on another image,
which I had prepared using dd, losetup and mkfs.msdos.
This way, I was able to setup a 2.88 M image, although I
never had had neither the resp. drive nor media ;-).

Till now, I implicitly assumed, you want some kind of
DOS "OS" on your floppy image / boot cd.

For linux loading from a FAT formatted floppy (image),
similar to major distributors' install media,
please check out the syslinux / isolinux packages.

> Also, has anyone any experience of using -eltorito-alt-boot. If so,
> how does that work. Do you just specify another -b <bootimage> after
> the switch. And if you want more, do you just keep repeating
> -eltorito-alt-boot and -b <bootimage> ad nauseum.
>

Sorry, haven't tried neither that one, nor the other El Torito
booting methods: hard disk emulation and "no emulation" (yet).

Juergen

"Trouble@Mill" <Trouble@Mill.> writes:
>
> Before that happens though, I'm planning on burning a couple of
> 'rescue' CDs that I can boot from.

I usually use one of tomsrtboot's images to make bootable 'rescue' CD's.
This has the advantage of there being lots of the necessary utilities
already available.

Jack
--
Vlad, Heisenberg & Thomas: The originators of FUD.