On Wed, 26 Sep 2001, Thomas Mueller wrote: > I have experience with Zip drives: external SCSI 100 and 250. Partition is > number 4, thus /dev/sda4 if the Zip drive is /dev/sda. Considering the state of > health of my Zip 250 drive, I wouldn't attempt to install Linux on it. I never > attempted to put a Linux file system on a Zip disk, though I once put a Linux > file system on a SyJet disk. Now the SyJet drive ejects the disk immediately > after spinning up, or a few minutes later. > > Now how do you use LOADLIN to use an existing partition for root and not be > prompted to insert a floppy disk for initrd?
I've never been prompted for a floppy when using loadlin. If you have your Linux installation on a Zip drive, it would seem that you could just replace the /dev/hda7 below with /dev/sda4. Here's a LINUX.BAT from my C:\LOADLIN directory: _____________________________________________________________________ rem Sample DOS batch file to boot Linux. rem First, ensure any unwritten disk buffers are flushed: smartdrv /C rem Start the LOADLIN process: c:\loadlin\loadlin c:\loadlin\linuz-2.214 root=/dev/hda7 ro vga=3 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Directory listing of /mnt/c-dos/loadlin: (or C:\LOADLIN) -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 683932 Jun 20 2000 bz2-2-15 -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 18324 Mar 22 1994 copying drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 8192 Feb 2 2001 doc -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 305 May 4 1996 files -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 1376 Mar 18 1996 initrd.tgz -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 224 Jun 30 16:01 linux.bat -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 640052 Feb 3 2001 linuz-2.214 -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 655711 Jun 30 14:48 linuz-2.219 -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32208 Apr 30 1996 loadlin.exe -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 87210 Feb 2 2001 lodlin16.tgz -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 2830 Apr 30 1996 readme.1st drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 8192 Feb 2 2001 src -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 2420 Apr 30 1996 test.par -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 587970 Feb 2 2001 vmlinuz I also have a root directory on /dev/hda2, so between that and /dev/hda7, and the 4 kernels to choose from, I have lots of mix'n'match options here. I've rarely used loadlin, but it's nice to have it there as insurance in the unlikely event you mess up your lilo.conf. ;-) - Steve
