Add floppy option to NT Loader menu

[SUOrangeman]

Is this even possible? LILO/grub/other Linux loaders have no problem with being able to boot a floppy (after POST and other system startup processes). Can NT Loader do the same?

FWIW, adding "A:\=Floppy" to C:\boot.ini didn't seem to work well.

-SUO

 

[jleon]

I know this might seem odd, but if you wanted to boot from floppy, you could have put in a floppy before you boot. It serves the same purpose. But I'm getting the feeling you want a perfect working bootloader..hehe

g'luck

 

[SUOrangeman]

Actually, jleon, I have my BIOS set to boot off of CD and then go to the hard drive ... as I will be more likely to boot off a CD than off a floppy. Unfortunately, there is no sequence that goes Floppy->(Zip, if I wanted to)->CD->HD. I've only seen that type of sequence on Dells.

What I have been doing since is adding floppy boot to LILO, which only runs after I add Linux to the NT loader menu.

-SUO

 

[Shadow07]

The NTLDR cannot handle floppy drives as a boot option. There is no ARC statement that will allow it to do this. If you want to boot off of a floppy, I would look at LILO or Boot Magic. You can run either one of these boot loaders instead of NTLDR.

 

[SUOrangeman]

ERRRRRRNNNHHHH. Wrong answer.

BootPart (from www.winimage.com) is able to create a boot secot file for floppies. I tried it and the floppy drive read my diskette. Unfortunately, I think the boot sector file expects a DOS floppy, but I was trying to use a Linux boot disk.

BootPart also has other options to add MSDOS to the menu, but I was too afreaid to try it. I wasn't sure if it would override my existing MBR or not (not reading docs, hehe).

-SUO

 

[SUOrangeman]

Silly me. The floppy option generated by bootpart does work. I'm guessing that my Linux boot floppy is bad (Mandrake 8 beta, hehe). I was able to boot myself with an emergency BeOS floppy that I has made some time ago.

Hurray for BootPart!

-SUO