Two other techniques that you can use:
1) Use sbm (Smart Boot Manager). I don't have the URL in front of me, but you can google for it. Since I discovered sbm, I've totally quit bothering to make emergency boot disks.
2) Create a grub boot disk. I've attached a text file detailing how. To give credit where it's due, the method is described in O'Reilly's "Linux in a Nutshell, 4th edition". It's an excellent book and has a very good section on boot methods--lilo, grub, multi-booting--the works!
-mj-
T'Krin wrote:
On Mon, April 4, 2005 8:42 pm, israel.garcia@cimex.com.cu said:
On Sat, 2005-04-02 at 08:55 -0500, israel.garcia@cimex.com.cu wrote:
I'm trying to make a bootdisk in my CentOS server and I got this error..
any ideas?
[root@server:~]$ rpm -qa kernel kernel-2.6.9-5.0.3.EL [root@server:~]$ mkbootdisk 2.6.9-5.0.3.EL --device /dev/fd0 Insert a disk in /dev/fd0. Any information on the disk will be lost. Press <Enter> to continue or ^C to abort: cp: writing `/tmp/mkbootdisk.d20227/initrd.img': No space left on device cat: write error: No space left on device cat: write error: No space left on device 20+0 records in 20+0 records out
On Apr 2, 2005 5:23 AM, Johnny Hughes mailing-lists@hughesjr.com wrote:
The kernel and initrd are too big to fit on a floppy ... there is no option to boot them from floppy any more.
Johnny, If I can not use a floppy any more to boot my server, What can I use to boot the server in case of a crash? How can I make a CD bootdisk to my CentOS Server? Is there another way to boot my server?
regards;
Israel
You could probably use the first install disk to boot into rescue mode. I have done that with CentOS-3 and it worked fine for me. I would imagine CentOS-4 would be pretty similar in that respect.
~Dan
CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Making a GRUB Boot Disk
It's always worthwhile to have some sort of an emergency boot diskette for your Linux installation. Sometimes, however, there is a problem making a standard emergency boot disk. However, you can create a GRUB boot disk. The following steps are based on material in the "Boot Methods" chapter in O'Reilly's "Linux in a Nutshell"--AND they work!
The following assumes that you are installing Linux into partition three on the second disk or, in Linux terms, hdb3. Obviously, modify as required.
The steps are as follows: 1. In a terminal window, "su -" to root. 2. Create a GRUB configuration file (/boot/grub/grub.conf) similar to the following. (Note: grub identifies disks and partitions starting with zero: hdb3-->hd1,2.) The "kernel" and "initrd" lines should have the appropriate actual file names from /boot. title Red Hat Linux (2.4.18-14) root (hd1,2) kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.18-14 ro root=LABEL=/ hdc=ide-scsi initrd /initrd-2.4.18-14.img 3. Insert a floppy in the floppy drive and create a Linux file system on the floppy disk. mk2fs /dev/fd0 4. Mount the floppy drive and create the directory /boot/grub. mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy mkdir -p /mnt/floppy/boot/floppy 6. Copy the grub.conf, stage1, and stage2 files from /boot/grub to /mnt/floppy/boot/grub. 7. Run the grub command as shown below. grub --batch <<EOT root (fd0) setup (fd0) quit EOT
You can now use the floppy disk to boot to your GRUB menu.