Booting Linux from an internal IDE Zip disk?

Dustin Mollo dustin at sonic.net
Wed Dec 19 15:46:55 PST 2001


That's kinda funny...I hadn't thought to look to see if there was a Zip Disk
HOWTO.

I can impart one more piece of information from when I looked at this
yesterday.  The Zip drive is seen in Linux as an IDE floppy.  Don't ask me
why, but that's the driver that the Linux Care boot disk I had seemed to try
to load (but didn't exist).  The even more odd thing, though, is that
durring probing (durring boot), the Zip drive was found and given the device
/dev/hdd...rather odd.

I've never played with IDE Zip drives, and the machine here at work didn't
ship with one, so I can't reproduce his environment.  Anyone out there have
a setup with an IDE Zip drive in it that could maybe shed some more light on
how the drive appears in Linux?

-Dustin

On Wed, Dec 19, 2001 at 03:34:01PM -0800, Mark Street wrote:
> I think the only choice is to put the kernel image on a boot disk and have 
> the filesystem live on the Zip disk...... two disk distro...  The BIOS 
> limitations get you as well as Iomega's design.
> 
> The Zip Disk HOWTO is a good source.
> 
> Check out Dragon Linux, do a search on freshmeat.
> 
> At 02:06 PM 12/19/2001 -0800, Richard Gordon wrote:
> 
> >The short version of my question is this:
> >
> >Has anyone successfully booted Linux from an internal ATAPI Zip drive?
> >
> >The long version is this:
> >
> >In the computer labs at SSU there is a need to allow students to be root
> >under Linux and to have a copy of Linux that they can configure and run
> >on any computer in the lab. For this we want them to have Linux on a Zip
> >disk.
> >
> >We have PCs with an internal 100MB SCSI Zip drive. Linux (weI currently
> >use RedHat 7.1) can be installed on the disk and booted. (Yes, Linux is
> >too large for a 100 MB Zip. The Zip disk holds all the directories
> >except /usr which resides on the internal hard disk and is mounted by
> >the version of Linux on the Zip.) The boot loader on the computer
> >(either Windows NT or LILO) has an entry to boot the Zip drive. This all
> >works.
> >
> >The problem is that Iomega no longer markets internal SCSI Zip drives.
> >Anyway. we would like to switch to 250 MB drives and there never was an
> >internal SCSI version of that drive.
> >
> >So, I am trying to get the same mechanism to work with an internal IDE
> >(I guess now these are all ATAPI) drive. The computer I am using has two
> >IDE drives and a CDROM, so once Linux is running it thinks the Zip drive
> >is hdd. I followed all the same steps for this computer that I used to
> >in the SSU labs. Here is the contents of lilo.conf that I used on the
> >Zip disk:
> >
> >boot=/dev/hdd1
> >map=/boot/map
> >install=/boot/boot.b
> >prompt
> >timeout=50
> >linear
> >default=linux
> >
> >image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.2-2
> > label=linux
> > initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.2-2.img
> > read-only
> > root=/dev/hdd1
> >
> >The Zip disk is mounted at /mnt/zip. When I issue the command:
> >
> >lilo ­r /mnt/zip
> >
> >I receive a warning that drive 0x83 may not be available. Sure enough,
> >when I try to boot this Zip disk it fails with an error 0x01.
> >
> >My understanding of what is going on is that the bios numbers its drives
> >starting at 0x80. Lilo has to embed one of these number in the boot
> >record to correspond to the location of the root. Since lilo.conf claims
> >root is on hdd1, lilo embeds the number 0x83 (had is 0x80, hdb is 0x81,
> >etc.) The problem appears to be that the bios cannot use any drive
> >number above 0x81 (i.e my bios can handle only two drives).
> >
> >If all this is correct, then I need to locate a bios that can handle
> >drives numbered higher than 0x81. If I cannot solve this problem then I
> >will have to resort to one of the following less desirable solutions:
> >using external SCSI drives, or booting from some other device (e.g. a
> >floppy) and using the Zip disk to hold the file system but not the
> >kernel image.
> >
> >So my questions are:
> >
> >1. If my analysis is correct, is there a bios out there that will do
> >what I need? What is it?
> >2. If I am not correct, where is my explanation in error.
> >3. Is there some other mechanism I haven’t thought of that will work?
> >
> >Thanks
> >Richard Gordon
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >---
> >
> >Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
> >Version: 6.0.306 / Virus Database: 166 - Release Date: 12/4/2001

> 
> ---
> 
> Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
> Version: 6.0.306 / Virus Database: 166 - Release Date: 12/4/2001



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