Creating a boot diskette that does nothing but boot from hard disk

[Anthony Atkielski]

Is it possible to create a boot diskette that does nothing more than
boot from a specific hard disk? How would I go about doing so?

If I can't figure out why my system won't boot from the hard disk on its
own, I figure that perhaps I could create a diskette to pop into the
machine that would simple boot immediately from the hard disk. It
shouldn't require much code and should easily fit on a single diskette.

The method I'm using at the moment of changing floppies for ten minutes
then entering the loader and changing parameters and booting is much too
awkward.

--
Anthony

[Richard Jansson]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Anthony Atkielski" <atkielski.anthony@wanadoo.fr>
To: <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2005 9:28 PM
Subject: Creating a boot diskette that does nothing but boot from hard disk

> Is it possible to create a boot diskette that does nothing more than
> boot from a specific hard disk? How would I go about doing so?
>
> If I can't figure out why my system won't boot from the hard disk on its
> own, I figure that perhaps I could create a diskette to pop into the
> machine that would simple boot immediately from the hard disk. It
> shouldn't require much code and should easily fit on a single diskette.
>
> The method I'm using at the moment of changing floppies for ten minutes
> then entering the loader and changing parameters and booting is much too
> awkward.
>
> --
> Anthony
>
>

I now that there is a boot loader named fatload you can find it on
[url]http://www.vortex.prodigynet.co.uk/boot/index.html[/url]
you can install it with dd.

If that dont work you can write a program that loads a sector (boot sector)
to your RAM
memory and then jump there. Sounds simple but you musst not forget that you
should switch
to protected mode from real mode.

But I think fatload will work just fine. Good luck!
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[Peter Risdon]

On Wed, 2005-02-23 at 21:28 +0100, Anthony Atkielski wrote:

> Is it possible to create a boot diskette that does nothing more than
> boot from a specific hard disk? How would I go about doing so?

Assuming you are unable to boot after completing the installation, have
you tried a third-party boot manager like GAG? GAG in particular is
quite good at booting weird hardware and might very well find your
installation and offer it when you run the setup.

[url]http://gag.sourceforge.net/[/url]

>
> If I can't figure out why my system won't boot from the hard disk on its
> own, I figure that perhaps I could create a diskette to pop into the
> machine that would simple boot immediately from the hard disk. It
> shouldn't require much code and should easily fit on a single diskette.

In fact, you can set up a floppy with GAG on it like this. But you might
as well install GAG to the hard drive.

Peter.

[Anthony Atkielski]

Richard Jansson writes:

> If that dont work you can write a program that loads a sector (boot
> sector) to your RAM memory and then jump there. Sounds simple but you
> musst not forget that you should switch to protected mode from real
> mode.

I haven't written in assembler in years. I was hoping that maybe I
could just copy a boot program from somewhere to somewhere else. After
all, the usual boot program on the floppy boots the OS from the floppy,
so all one needs to do is change that program to point to the correct
hard drive instead.

--
Anthony

[Richard Jansson]

Try to use fatload [url]http://www.vortex.prodigynet.co.uk/boot/index.html[/url]

[Anthony Atkielski]

Peter Risdon writes:

> Assuming you are unable to boot after completing the installation, have
> you tried a third-party boot manager like GAG? GAG in particular is
> quite good at booting weird hardware and might very well find your
> installation and offer it when you run the setup.
>
> [url]http://gag.sourceforge.net/[/url]

I tried it. GaG boots, and finds the FreeBSD installation, and I
installed the installation it found as a boot option. But when I
actually select FreeBSD from the boot menu, I get the same blank screen
as before. GaG has no trouble booting from the hard disk, but FreeBSD
does.

--
Anthony