I am running Redhat 5.1, booting off a floppy disk created in
the installation process. It turns out this is the only copy I have.
When it started squealing I set about making replacements, and
I have been frustrated at every turn all morning. I am giving up
and am asking for help. To begin, I have only the most rudimentary
knowledge, so assume nothing in providing suggestions.
The boot floppy gets me to user login automatically, and I exit
with /sbin/shutdown -r now from root.
1.I can make another boot disk by going through the installation
process again, but that would wipe out all the customization I so
laboriously accomplished with a lot of help, stuff I could never
recreate on my own at this stage, so this is not an option.
2. Referring to Running Linux, I downloaded rawrite2.exe from
sunsite.unc.edu, intending to use it to copy the sole boot disk, but
it failed to read drive a: indicating a corrupted disk beyond the squealing
heard during linux boot up. Trying any other disk said permission
denied, so even if I could read the corrupted floppy, I can't get this
program to work anyhow.
3.Refering to Linux Undercover page 128, I could not get the
command rdev to work at all, saying command not found. I did
find the kernel (?) at /boot/vmlinuz-2.0.34-0.6. I copied the kernel(?)
cp /boot/vmlinuz-2.0.34-0.6 /dev/fd0
This seemed to work, after asking if I wanted to overwrite the floppy.
I had not done any kind of mount for the a: drive floppy. I then tried
to boot from this disk. It seemed to be working, but came up with the
following two lines and hung up.
VHS:cannot open root device 08:21
Kernel panic:VHS:unable to mount root from 08:21
I am at my wits end after struggling for most of the past day.. If I cannot
copy or recreate another boot floppy before the solitary wounded dove
boot floppy hits the dirt, I will lose all work done in this current installation.
Paul Traceski
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
P.S. Thanks for the SED command suggestions, they helped.
