Re: boot from zip drive?

Stephen D. Williams (sdw@lig.net)
Fri, 27 Mar 1998 21:55:07 -0500 (EST)


On 27 Mar 1998, Brian Rogers wrote:
> On 26 Mar 1998, Neal Becker wrote:
>
> > Can linux boot from a zip drive? How is it done?
>
> To boot from parallel or ATAPI Zip drives, see
> http://www.blueskyinnovations.com/
> They make BIOS add-on cards that let you do it.
> You can also get an MBR program.
>
> /* Brian Rogers, professional geek, coffee achiever */
>

I can boot and run a full Linux installation on an LS-120 Floptical,
However I have to do it with a zdisk boot (normal) floppy.

It was a little tricky to setup as Linux sees the Floptical as a
partitionable drive and the Bios doesn't. Booting the kernel from a
1.44MB floppy however works great if it's rdev'd to the Floptical IDE
device.

Works great for backing up/restoring/replacing harddrives and could be
reasonable in a minimal system.

Speed is very respectable, especially compared to the dog slow write
speed for the Floptical under Win95. Caching makes it nearly
unnoticable for system work.

sdw

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