Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Booting Linux from LS 120 Drives?

Posted by Cliff on from the bootstraping-from-something-other-than-floppy dept.

A member of Clan Anonymous Coward asks: "Does anyone know HOW to get these things to boot Linux? I have done a WWW search and found mailing-list messages that say it can be done. I have tried with Linux 2.0.36 off an LS 120 disk and all I got was continuous screenfuls of binary numbers scrolling off the screen. As far as I can determine LILO boot block did not even start execution. I tried formating the disk as /dev/hda and /dev/hda2 and both gave me similar results. The /dev/hda2 attempt had 'linear' in lilo.conf. Do I need a later version of lilo?"

13 comments

  1. When you've seen one BIOS, you've seen one BIOS by nor · · Score: 1

    I'm 1 for 2 with a 2.0.36 kernel with LILO 20. Results seem to vary with BIOS:

    AMI BIOS 1.16a on a Tyan S1836 Thunder 100 motherboard: LILO works, but in the BIOS setup, you have to change ARMD emulation from Auto to hard disk.

    OTOH, using a Packard Bell with Award BIOS (I don't have the version # here), I couldn't make it work. I tried every LILO incantation I could find; got nothing but L01 01 01... I also tried writing a kernel directly to the disk. That gets "Loading .............", then hangs.

    It's too bad--painfully slow, but it makes for one hell of a rescue disk. Now if it would only work on more than one computer I know of....

    On both systems, I could use a 1.44M floppy to boot, then use the root filesystem on the LS-120. Swell, if you want an LS-120 and a standard floppy.

    C'est la PC.

    --
    -- Remove the BOING from my email address if you don't want it to bounce.
  2. Set the bios to boot LS120 first by Scott_F · · Score: 1

    I've got just my LS120 drive (not 1.44) and it runs fine. only catch is that the BIOS has to know how to handle the LS120. In mine (award 4.51g), it gives the "boot order" option to be "LS120,C:".

    but it sounds like your BIOS is booting the LS120 fine, just that lilo is getting garbled somewhere.

    i've heard though that the LS120 disks have 4 or 5 partitions, and the last one is the one that it actually uses. (use the linux fdisk program to view the partition info to make sure). try writing the lilo info there and reboot. if that doesn't work, try each one sequentially until it does. sorry i don't have an exact solution. :) if you find the solution, please post.

  3. Set the bios to boot LS120 first by nor · · Score: 1

    The machine I mentioned earlier (I'm at it now): a Packard Bell 880 with Award v4.51PG. I had it set to boot LS120, and it still didn't work. However, I didn't write LILO to the "last partition.": I either repartitioned it, or wrote the fs to the whole device (/dev/hdc.) Either way, it failed as described previously.

    Can you post or email me the lilo.conf you got it to work with?

    !||

    --
    -- Remove the BOING from my email address if you don't want it to bounce.
  4. A lilo.conf suggestion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I got this from the Linux Router Project website at http://www.linuxrouter.org/floppy.shtml Please post if it works for you :-)

    LILO does work fine with 120MB disks. Here is a sample lilo.conf:

    boot=/dev/hda
    compact
    disk=/dev/hda bios=0
    install=/floppy/boot.b
    map=/floppy/map
    image=/floppy/linux
    label=Linux
    append="load_ramdisk=1"
    initrd=/floppy/root.bin
    ramdisk=8192

    The line "disk=/dev/hda bios=0" is what does the trick to make it boot the LS-120.

  5. I can't boot a 1.44 zdisk from my LS-120 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's odd. I have an LS-120 drive. If I copy the RedHat boot.img onto a regular floppy, I can boot up. If I copy a zImage onto the floppy (no lilo) then I can NOT boot.

    I suspect the boot block at the beginning of the zImage is doing something incompatible with the LS-120 floppy-emulation scheme.

  6. My Experiences by Ignacio · · Score: 1
    I have an LS-120, and I managed to get LILO working on it just fine. The trick is to tell lilo that /dev/hd? has a BIOS code of 0x00. I also find that giving the params also helps:

    disk=/dev/hda
    bios=0x00
    cylinders=963
    heads=32
    sectors=8

    Then to put it on, you run lilo as you normally would.

    CAVEAT: On SCSI-only systems, lilo complains if you try to put it on the LS-120 through command-line arguments pointing to the LS-120. The correct way to do this (for me, I don't know about others) is to put the LS-120 disk in the drive and just run lilo against the hard disk. If you run lilo against the hard disk without a disk in the drive, it complains about /dev/hda not existing or something. I believe that it's because lilo does IDE devices first.

    P.S.: Does anybody have a SCSI floppy drive they're looking to get rid of?

  7. SCSI Floppy Drives??? by unitron · · Score: 1

    Do such things exist? And speaking of hardware items of interest to perhaps 3 people on the entire planet, does anyone know of a PCI bus IDE/floppy controller and I/O and game port card? I thought I'd tracked down a DTC part number but the chips it was to use failed to materialize.

    --

    I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.

    1. Re:SCSI Floppy Drives??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Winstation sells SCSI floppy drives (1.44MB and LS120):

      http://www.winstation.com/removable.html

      Anyone know if these will work under Linux??

  8. they do indeed seem to exist by Paul+Robinson · · Score: 1

    http://www.sqa.net/tadpole/

    i think i got that from slashdot, but i don't remember... anyway, the machines come with scsi floppy drives, but i think they are external. last time i checked, pricewatch has an entry for scsi floppy drives.

    as for the second item, that would seem to be a very packed card. but hey, i don't know.

  9. PCI bus SuperIO by the_tsi · · Score: 1

    Old mac donald had a farm.. IDEIO.

    Most PCI-based implementations of basic I/O ports (serial, parallel, game) tend to be non-standard and therefore windows-only. I'd imagine that most companies which ship PCI-based IDE cards figure anyone with a PCI bus has on-board Super IO, since it's embedded in intel and third-party's chipsets.

    Of course, if you want an ISA one, I've got cases... :)

    -Chris

  10. SCSI Floppy Drives??? Yes!!! by red_dragon · · Score: 1

    Yes, such thingees exist; most of them are flopticals, though. The way I remember, some SCSI host adapters have/had an option to make the floptical appear as A:. But damn, I've never seen one of those beasts.

    --
    In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
  11. Other boot loaders.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Have you tried any other boot loaders besides Lilo? Maybe syslinux will work.. Can't remember the url off hand, but I'm sure you can find it easily.. or maybe someone here knows?

  12. boot 'n root by Th0th · · Score: 1

    Hey all,
    I've had no problem whatsoever getting the ls120 to boot linux, so long as the ls120 is not my root partition. It (says it) mounts the ls120 partition, then claims it can't find init and panics. Here's what I've done. I've fdisked the floppy, and created a partition (/dev/hda1) on it. I then formatted hda1, and mounted it under floppy. Afterwhich, I copied /etc, /sbin, and /bin to /floppy. (so that when hda1 is the root directory, the kernel should be able to find /sbin/init). Here's my lilo.conf...

    boot=/dev/hda
    root=/dev/hda1
    prompt
    compact
    disk=/dev/hda bios=0
    install=/floppy/boot/boot.b
    map=/floppy/boot/map
    image=/floppy/boot/bzImage
    label=Linux
    read-only

    As I said before, this works great. It gets through the whole lilo process, and mounts the hda1 as the root partition (At least it says it does) but then it dies saying it can't find init, which should clearly be there. Any ideas???

    --
    "BadTimes will make you fall in love with a penguin" - Laika