making bootable floppy image from file not floppy

[stunter]

OK, so I have the files that are designed to be boot and follow on floppies. I want to create a bootable floppy image (.iso file, I suppose) that could be mounted and used to install. I would just create the floppies, but I no longer have a floppy drive in my computer (and truth is, I haven't in a long time).

Is there a way to do this in linux? I have a program that is supposed to work in Windows, but I haven't tried it yet.

Weird problem, but there it is. I've been googling for the last hour looking, but not much as been helpful. Lots about turning a bootable image into a floppy, but not much about creating a bootable floppy image that files could be added to.

Thanks for any help with this.

[marcelkraan]

fdformat /dev/fd0
mkbootdisk 2.6.27
files: boot.msg, initrd.img, ldlinux.sys, syslinux.cfg and vmlinuz. vmlinuz

and before this you need a virtual floppy disk :-)
http://chitchat.at.infoseek.co.jp/vmware/vfd.html

[stunter]

Only problem is, I don't own a floppy drive. I know how to make a boot disk. But I want to create a boot image. Is it possible to create a floppy iso file that can be mounted like a DVD image?

[steelaworkn]

You can get USB 3.5 floppy drives for under 50 bucks. I think I bought mine for under 30.

[marcelkraan]

i don't know aether?
dd if=/dev/zero of=floppy.iso bs=1024 size=???

msybe something likr this

[stevea]

.iso refers to an iso9660 CD format. Has ZERO to do with floppies.
I've read your OP twice and I still have no clue what you are trying to do. Please explain with a little more detail.


*IF* you have a FAT or FAT32 disk image (these are the common floppy file formats), then you can mount image and diddle the files without ever copying it to another device. BTW I haven't owned a working floppy in like 12 years.

As root you can mount a vfat file (/tmp/somefile) that is a file-system image like this ...
mkdir /media/mp
mount -t vfat -o loop /tmp/somefile /media/mp
ls -l /media/mp


If you need to boot your system, then you will need to copy this to some bootable device.
If your system can boot a USB flash stick, then insert your USB stick, emtpy if (it will be reformatted) and assuming it appears as /dev/sdb ..the you neeed this command.

dd if=/tmp/somefile of=/dev/sdb

Then diddle the BIOS to boot the USB stick.

Unfortuantely if you have 10 floppy images you may need 10 USB sticks.
*MAYBE* you can mount each floppy images and copy all the files to one
USB stick ... but that completely depends on the install software.

[sideways]

You can create a bootable Freedos floppy image, add files to it and boot it from grub, or as a virtual machine.

http://opseast.wordpress.com/2007/10...-sled-or-sles/

These suse rpms will install in fedora
http://dir.filewatcher.com/d/SuSE/9....rpm.89445.html

sudo rpm -ihv <path to>/dosbootdisk-1.1-31.i586.rpm

A ready made freedos floppy image is provided, just uncompress it and then loop mount it to add files or boot it in qemu, vmware etc

$ zcat /usr/share/dosbootdisk/floppy.gz > floppy.img
$ sudo qemu -m 32 -boot a -fda floppy.img &

You can get more exciting floppy images, eg here's a linux based router on a floppy:
http://www.rtfm-ed.co.uk/?p=101

(run it under qemu for a quick demo)