[syslinux] what I'm doing wrong?

[H. Peter Anvin]

dor wrote:
> I'm trying to make my own boot+root linux on a floppy disk
> this is what i am trying:
>  dd if=/dev/zero of=disk bs=1k count=900
>  mkdosfs -F 12 disk
>  mount disk mnt -o loop
>  cp bzImage mnt/linux
>  umount mnt
>  syslinux -s disk
>  dd if=disk of=/dev/fd0
> 
> but when i tray to boot with the disk i get "boot filed"
>

There is no standard-format 900K floppy image, so mkdosfs makes up a 
geometry, which is almost certainly *not* one your BIOS knows how to 
read.  Try count=1440 instead (or count=720 if, *AND ONLY IF* you 
actually have a 720K formatted floppy -- fdformat /dev/fd0D720).

	-hpa