How to boot from an LS120 superfloppy?

[Craigo]

Howdy;

An acquaintance of mine tried Puppy specifically because it supports LS120 (aka "superfloppy") boot. Unfortunately, he has had absolutely no luck. Can anyone help?

tia,
Craig

Here's the skinny:

My test system was a Gigabyte MB with 320MB of PC100 RAM and an LS-120
superfloppy. My goal was to get Puppy Linux installed on my old CF-25
Toughbook laptop which has neither CD-ROM drive nor USB support, but
does have a bootable LS-120 drive. I planned to use the desktop to
install Puppy on an LS-120 disk, then boot the laptop with it.

I found the description of the IDE ZIP/LS-120 install fairly
confusing, and ended up trying it every possible way, using two
brand-new disks. The process was very slow because the installer kept
locking up with the drive running endlessly. I frequently had to
restart X-Windows to break out. One time I let it run 20 minutes
trying to write the ".sfs" file, before shutting it down.

I tried every different MBR option provided, including repartitioning
with Gparted, and writing the mbr to disk manually. None of the
resulting installations would boot - not on the laptop, nor on the
desktop. The error messages varied - "no system", "invalid
partition", and:

s2b2 dx=0000 int13,8 cx=C3E0 dx=0701 *E1* (this result required a hard
reset to unlock the system)

And when I was done, neither Gparted nor QTparted could read either
disk (both locked up), and Win98SE couldn't format them.

[sunburnt]

Hi Craigo; Just delete the partition & make a new FAT32 one.
Puppy runs fine on my dual-boot FAT32 Win98 partitions, easy to setup & use.

You don't say what boot method your using, & the laptop only has an LS-120?
Also it's a good idea to tell which Puppy version your using.

If you can FAT32 format the LS-120, I can help you set up Puppy on it.
You'll have to be able to extract the 3 Puppy files from the ISO file,
which means you'll have to boot Puppy on another PC to do the work.
Do you have another PC that also has an LS-120 drive in it?

[Sage]

We did LS-120 a long time ago -Search.
I followed instructions and it worked OK, but it's an utter waste of time for anything except saving files in regular format because access times are lamentable. Took ~20mins to boot up as I recall. Although all drives are basically the same, some run a little faster than others, according to badge. The LS-240 might've been better but were withdrawn soon after appearing and were horrendously expensive. I've never seen any.

[Craigo]

Howdy;

An acquaintance of mine tried Puppy specifically because it supports LS120 (aka "superfloppy") boot. Unfortunately, he has had absolutely no luck. Can anyone help?

Sunburnt, Sage;

Thanks for the feedback. I've passed it along to my acquaintance. I'll see what comes of any gyrations on his part and let you know.

regards,
-Craig

[Gn2]

It would be very limiting to install Puppy to an LS120 (super floppy)

Booting from one would be OK - just install a loader to that media.

Could even use a frugal install on it - but storing a save file might be unacceptably slow. for read/writes

Floppies are also notorious for sudden failures.

[Craigo]

It would be very limiting to install Puppy to an LS120 (super floppy)

Booting from one would be OK - just install a loader to that media.

Yes, that was the idea...boot and install from an ls120 to the system's hard disk. Unfortunately, the way things are documented currently, one gets the impression that this process in Puppy has been ironed out.

If there are extra steps required, say, adding a loader to the media, it might be helpful (to someone somewhere) to document this. Otherwise, considering the increasing rarity of the ls120, it might be a good idea to remove mention of it from Puppy's doc. Right now, looking at google's results on "ls-120" and "puppy linux," I would get the impression that this were a "no-brainer."

Anyway, thanks again for the help during my acquaintance's attempt at this.

best,
-Craig

[sunburnt]

If I now understand correctly, the laptop HAS a HD.
In this case just FAT32 the LS-120 & make it DOS bootable,
then put the 3 Puppy files on it & put the disk in the laptop.
Boot the laptop to DOS & copy the 3 Puppy files the the laptop's HD.
Then use Grub, syslinux, or DOS with linld to boot it (I like DOS & linld).
If you need help with making the HD bootable, just ask.

[Sage]

G: I believe the unreliability of FDs to be an urban myth. Apart from a dud batch I bought from a boot sale twenty years ago, I've only had a couple of failures out of thousands. One needs to take all the rational precautions to store magnetic data correctly, of course.
The LS-120 is not yet ready for deletion from history. It still appears in virtually all BIOS settings. It was extensively used by Compaq at one time. The only mistake that Panasonic made was failure to get their pricing structure correct - like Iomega, they were far too greedy. No wonder CD technology had so little difficulty displacing the superdisk -kicking at an open door. Otherwise, I agree that it is grossly unreasonably that Linux distros should expect users to engage in any kind of code manipulation to get stuff working.

[Gn2]

Sunburnt

Fat32 has a MINIMUM SIZE LIMITATION
Please See ALSO > FAT32
For Super Floppies - format fat16
--------------------------------------------------
SAGE

Floppy failures - their boot sector is easily corrupted
Esp in Linux - E.G. users remove the disc when writes are still pending.
Default system behaviour of Async writes - waiting for idle CPU cycles
Trays cannot be locked.

Linux had utility to lock Iomega discs and/or write protect.
Not readily implemented - used the Scsi media interface.

Floppy drive characteristics may be changed via use of SETFDPRM utility
This allows media to be formatted to extended densities -
IIRC - up to 2.1 MB - most commonly employed to use 1.7MB,
aleviating compressed kernel image exceeding 1.4MB media limitation
See

Code: Select all

man fdformat <and>  setfdprm

Consult (mtools) utility
Use @ own RISK not all drives accept parameters - hard to revert to fd0H1440 / fd0U1440 standard

[Sage]

I used to use 'funny formats' when an 8-bit 165K FD cost me C$10 - each!
But then it was amazing how much data, as well as apps., could be squeezed onto one of those. Back then the OS was on ROM and available ms after switching on. Progress? Can't see any. Maybe my eyes are getting dim....

[Gn2]

Depends on view

Back then - there were few FULL Linux distributions running from 1.4MB floppies !

NOW - it is commonplace - Esp as dedicated server (Apache) &/or gateway or firewall stand-alones.

Linux is Linux, not eye-candy or wizard dependent

GIGO - KISSes concepts : = Don't embrace as Black magic or Black Hand bus

Kiss Of Death lyrics
[Verse 1 - Jadakiss]

Uh, I learnt the game, I know what I want and I'm in it,
The time is now, it's gonna be up in a minute

[Sage]

Linux? Linus didn't publish until the mid-90's. I was using a mouse with a DTP on 8-bit a decade earlier than that...

PS And how long before someone retells for the nth time about going to the moon and back in '69 with 4Kb of mem......

[Gn2]

Stallman '83 (Gnu ) to be accurate - not Unix, not Torvalds' later Minix derivative
Histrionics > How to explain 8bit manipulations then =
difficulties accessing Optics now ?

[sunburnt]

Gn2; I didn't read in depth, but I think the min. FAT32 size is 32MB.

And I agree with Peter Norton that M$ has intentionally crippled the FAT32 file system.
But then doesn't M$ cripple everything they get their hands on?

The wackiest thing is the secondary boot sector, used to "backup" the primary sector.
But when the primary sector's is bad, restoring to it is worthless.
WHY didn't they just make it boot from the secondary sector instead?
What kind of moron would do that? This is a prime example of M$ in action...

[Sage]

What you say may well be correct, SB, but it is possible to extract the info from the second copy and rewrite back to the first using a disk editor. I saw a complete description of howto in a computer mag rather a long time ago. [I still possess it somewhere in my archives - Paul Mullen, Computer Shopper (only UK edition).]
FAT32 may be hobbled, but in practice it proves easier to use, fix and circumvent by users once you know its foibles than just about any other FS I've encountered. If it had been properly developed and implemented who knows where it might've led?! Of course, no OS holds any terror for IT professionals, but they are a tiny minority of the installed user base.

[sunburnt]

Sage; DOS will copy sector 2 to 1 if 1 is bad.
But the problem remains that if sector 1 is bad, DOS & Win. won't access the files.

Disks can be recovered by other disk utilities, but not by a M$ OS that I'm aware of.
I don't know if any other OS (Linux) will directly boot from the second sector.

[Gn2]

Limitations of BIOS versus boot sector are legacy NOT platform
There are many extensions to enable BIOS reads > problems of former size limits.
Size dictated assembly code for initlal bytes - just "re-direct to
contiguous new sectors - until all is passed to kernel initiate sequences.

Note: The minimum size for a FAT32 partition is about 260 MB.

IIRC - In actual practice, W98 usually threw a hissy fit if less than Approx 500MB (unless 4k clusters were used) -
Which defeated the whole intent of using Fat32 !

Sage - HOW can you state that Re Fat32 etal ?
Didn't you READ the link !
It doesn't take an IT Pro (whatever that is) - to understand Linux basics &/or how to configure.

Anything wanted to know is somewhere on Web.

Linux initial boot sector (assembly code) bytes start at very first of allocated space
Please read prior in-depth data, in links I had provided RE loaders & Bios
More are here:
MBR
ERRORS
YOLINUX - Most anything you may want to know
I have used a dedicated rescueCD to recover MBR tables wiped by "dd" ( that is REALLY wiped )
Forensics analysis tools can do amazing things in qualified hands.
- on "frozen" state devices (not emptied/overwritten repeatably by null bytes.

[Sage]

'easier' may be highly subjective, G, but sad to relate that's the reality for many of us ordinary mortals out here. As you learn in academia, you have to work with the material they send you - no good complaining they don't think like you do! This is what Linux/Unix folk still, after all these years, have utterly failed to understand and why the richest man in the world is, well, the ric.....