[comp.sys.next] Bootable Floppy

zimmer@calvin.stanford.edu (Andrew Zimmerman) (02/11/91)

Sorry if this is a RTFM question.  I did look, honest I did.

Is it possible to boot from a 2.88 Meg floppy.  I red in the manual
that you can give the command bfd (or something) to boot from the
floppy.  If that is the case, how does one make a bootable 2.88 Meg
floppy disk?  
   For those who might question why I would want such a thing, it might
come in handy if (more like when :-) I trash my hard disk.  With a 
bootable floppy I might be able to restore my hard disk.

Andrew
zimmer@calvin.stanford.edu

lacsap@plethora.media.mit.edu (Pascal Chesnais) (02/12/91)

In article Bootable Floppy
 zimmer@calvin.stanford.edu (Andrew Zimmerman)
of : Stanford University writes:

Is it possible to boot from a 2.88 Meg floppy.  I red in the manual
that you can give the command bfd (or something) to boot from the
floppy.  If that is the case, how does one make a bootable 2.88 Meg
floppy disk?  

Yes it is possible to boot from floppies (note the plural
there).  However it is not so easy.  You will need to use
the /usr/etc/builddisk script, and the script provided
in /private/etc/BLD.bs...  If you really do trash your
disk I would suggest you work with your campus computer store
or the campus consultant to rebuild it...  Using builddisk script
is _not_ for the novice user...

The warnings on the buildscript for floppies is quite explicit
about it being in development with a lot of hardcoded stuff,
and kludges... I do NOT know if it works, I have NOT tried
this script.  I have NOT tried restoring from floppies.

pasc