linux boot CD creation problems

From: lin user (linuxuser100_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 08/27/03 

Date: 27 Aug 2003 08:35:53 -0700

Hi all,

I have a dual boot machine (XP + RH 7.3). I have not installed any
boot loaders and get into linux thru a boot floppy. (My boot sequence
is floppy, CDROM, hard drive, so if I put a linux floppy, I boot to
linux and if there is no floppy, I get into XP).

Reecently, my floppy died and I managed to get into linux thru the
installation CD, then created a new boot floppy. At that time, I
researched of creating a boot CD, instead of the floppy, for better
durability.

I went thru the bootable CD FAQ and CD burning FAQ but was unable to
create the boot CD. (Eventually, I went into XP and created a boot CD
thru Nero Express. It booted fine from the CD).

Here are the steps I followed in linux:

cdrecord -scanbus -> I noted the 3 numbers for dev option of cdrecord

Then I made an image of the boot floppy
cd ~/
mkdir boot
cd boot
dd if=/dev/fd0 of=boot.img bs=10k count=144

Then I made an iso fs

mkisofs -r -b boot.img -c boot.catalog -o bootcd.iso .

Then I tested the iso by mounting onto cdrom

mount -t iso9660 -o ro,loop=/dev/loop0 bootcd.iso /cdrom

When I examined the contents of the /cdrom, it had boot.img and
boot.catalog, wheras my boot floppy has vmlinuz, initrd.img etc. So I
had my doubts if the CD image is going to work.

I burned the image onto CD (CDRW) anyway by the following:

cdrecord -v speed=2 dev=0,0,0 -data bootcd.iso

This also completed w/o errors.

However, the machine did not boot thru the CD.

(I burned the image from the floppy on the same medium (after erase)
thru Nero, and that worked OK ie the machine recognized the bootable
CD at startup and took me to the boot: prompt)

I am still curious to get it working in linux. Any hints as to what
might have gone wrong?

regards
murli

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