Boot from floppy w/ lilo

[eXtremist]

Does anyone know how to add 'floppy' to lilo?
I figure you have to add something like

other=/dev/fd0
label=Floppy

but do I need to add anything else? Like a table= or image= or anything like that?

[MBMarduk]

You mean you got LILO on your MBR and you want to occasionally try a bzImage you dd-ed onto a flop?

I'm not too sure about it. Make sure you have 'prompt' somewhere before the images list begins.

I think

image = /fd0/yourkernelhere
label = flop
root = yourroothere
read-only


GL

[ph34r]

Yah, I tried doing the same thing to have my CD as a option in lilo, and it don't work.

Your bios should be setup to boot floppy, then harddrive (or maybe cd) then cd (or maybe hd). If that is the case, then just having the floppy in at reboot should do it.

[eXtremist]

I know how to enable my BIOS to boot from floppy..

See, when mandrake installs on a medium security installation, LILO has a 'floppy' boot option.

And what MBMarduk said isn't what I'm looking for, because if I put a DOS disk in, it won't boot.

If someone with mandrake is out there, could you look in your lilo.conf and tell me what it says?

[Coral Sea]

I don't have boot from floppy as a LILO option because it's redundant (isn't it?). Whenever I've installed Linux and LILO, I always blow away the boot from floppy option along with the other useless options that get proposed (I have multi-boot, many partitions PCs).

If you stick a boot floppy into your PC and it has a reasonably recent BIOS, then you should be able to boot into whatever systems are on your PC (Linux or Windows). Having the boot from floppy option seems like an extra, useless step.

[eXtremist]

I know I COULD boot from my BIOS.. But that's not what I want to do guys..

Thanks for trying to help, but I really want to know how to do this with LILO, no matter how redundant or stupid it sounds..! My problem is not that I want to boot from floppy, because if that was my problem I would have it solved! My problem is I want to boot from a floppy using LILO.

Check this.. If I set my BIOS to boot from floppy, anybody could pop a floppy in my system and fdisk it to hell. LILO has an option to add a password to any boot option. Therefore, if I set LILO to boot from floppy, I could add a password to it.

And I know I could put a BIOS password on and then disable booting from floppy and only enable it when I need it, but again, this is not what I want to do.

I know you guys mean well, and I thank you, but I'm looking for a specific solution to my problem, not alternate solutions.

[Linuxcool]

OK, let me see if I understand what you want to do.

You have linux installed on your harddrive and lilo is in the MBR. The harddrive is set up to be the first boot device in your BIOS. You want to use floppies to boot into linux and dos, but you don't want anyone else to do the same. You're going to use the ' password ' option of lilo to restrict access.

I believe all you have to do is add the two lines you have in your first message and the line that says ' unsafe '.

This is what usafe is:
"unsafe - Do not access the boot sector at map creation time. This disables some sanity checks, including a partition table check. If the boot sector is on a fixed-format floppy disk device, using unsafe avoids the need to put a readable disk into the drive when running the map installer, unsafe and table are mutually incompatible."

You're lilo.conf file entry would look like this:

other=/dev/fd0
label=Floppy
unsafe

I've never tried this, so I don't know if this will work.

[bdl]

Originally posted by eXtremist:
<STRONG>
Check this.. If I set my BIOS to boot from floppy, anybody could pop a floppy in my system and fdisk it to hell. LILO has an option to add a password to any boot option. Therefore, if I set LILO to boot from floppy, I could add a password to it.

</STRONG>

I mean no disrespect, but this makes no sense at all. If you have the floppy enabled as a boot device in the BIOS, anyone can still stick in a floppy and screw with your system. LILO has nothing to do with it. The only way to limit this is to disable the floppy and create a BIOS password. Even then, someone can just remove the case cover and clear the CMOS.

[Linuxcool]

bdl, I believe what he has done is made the BIOS to try to boot from the harddrive first then the floppy. As long as the harddrive is bootable and there is nothing wrong with it, the BIOS will never try to boot from the floppy. Therefore, no one can gain access unless they know the password.

If he uses passwords for both the BIOS and lilo, nobody will be able to access the computer with a floppy unless they do what you said and opened up the computer and cleared the CMOS.

He appears to want to boot the computer into linux or dos by using floppies. I can see booting into dos using a floppy and lilo if the computer doesn't have dos or windows installed on it. I just can't see booting linux from floppies.

[eXtremist]

Guys.. Why are you making this so complicated..?

My BIOS is set to boot from the C drive ONLY.. It checks the C drive, and from there it loads LILO. That way, no one can boot from a floppy via the BIOS.

Now, if I ever DO want to boot from a floppy, (linux, dos, WHATEVER..doesn't matter) I want the option in LILO. I know this is possible because the first time I installed Mandrake, it WAS an option. (I did a high security install last time, and it's not there now..I want to add it). Once I am able to use LILO to boot from a floppy (to DOS -or- linux), I will enable a password. That way, if anyone selects 'floppy' from LILO, they will be prompted for the root password. If they do not have this, then they can not boot (from the floppy).

I think what linuxcool told me may work.. I'll try it when I get home in a few days. If it doesn't I'll get back to you.

[trekker]

Yo! I have recently installed Mandy 8 with medium security. This is what I have in my /etc/lilo.conf for the floppy option:

other=/dev/fd0
label=floppy
unsafe

Hope this helps :)

Edit: And Linuxcool... you're cool :cool: man.. you were spot on!

[ 26 May 2001: Message edited by: trekker ]