LinuxLingam wrote:
dear all,
just combed thru the mailing archives at ltsp, the documentation, and
searched thru google. need help on the following unresolved problem:
objective: old pcs with small hard-disks (500mb, 4gb to 8gb) are to be
used for merely booting into ltsp. instructions are *not* to boot from
NIC-based ROM, or from floppy, or from LILO or GRUB. just the hard disk.
one pc, with a 4gb hard disk, does successfully boot into LTSP without
using lilo.
this was how this had been achieved:
1) the correct *.zdsk was downloaded from rom-o-matic into a
sub-directory.
2) using the usual cat /yaddayadda/*.zdsk >/dev/fd0 a floppy boot was
created, that was tested using a floppydrive on the targetted
workstation.
3) the floppy boots the workstation into LTSP without errors.
4) some forgotten *magic* sequence of commands and techniques were then
used to make the hard-disk behave like a boot floppy. in principle, the
*.zdsk image was used (but not any *.zlilo with lilo or grub installs)
to flatter the hard disk into thinking it has slimmed down to a floppy,
and a permanently attached one at that.
:-)
5) works ever since.
problem is, what is that *magic*?
fyi, the Rom-o-matic created image that works is:
/yadda/eb-5.2.0-rtl8139.zdsk
and am using ltsp3.0
so far, i have tried the following, without success:
1) connected the 8GB hardisk to hdb, but left it unmounted.
#cat /yadda/eb-5.2.0-rtl8139.zdsk >/dev/hdb
no success. the workstation finds no ROM to get booted.
2) shove the working floppy into its drive.
# cat /dev/fd0 >/dev/hdb
same error.
3) using fdisk, deleted all partitions, leaving it unformatted.
#cat /yadda/eb-5.2.0-rtl8139.zdsk >/dev/hdb
same error.
4) again deleted all partitions, then with the floppy:
# cat /dev/fd0 >/dev/hdb
same error.
5) deleted all partitions, created a new primary partition, hdb1. made
it active. formatted it to ext3, mounted it to test, then unmounted,
then:
# cat /dev/fd0 >/dev/hdb1
same error.
whew!
a google-search did point me to an old web-page somewhere, but those
instructions weren't relevant or helpful.
??
LL
I would think cat /dev/fd0 > /dev/hda should work
Why are you using hdb?
Is the drive you're trying to boot primary master?
Not secondary slave or something like that?
Most bios boot from MBR on primary master.
Just a thought.
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