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Why do i get BOOT FAIL when making a MANDRAKE 8.2 LINUX bootable floppy?

I'm trying to install Mandrake Linux 8.2 on a "clean" harddrive. The computer won't let me boot from the CD first, so I am trying to make a boot disk for the A: drive. I've been successful in using RAWRITE to make the CDROM.img to make the floppy. When I turn the computer off, and try to boot from the floppy, i get BOOT FAIL. I have the appropriate equipment: PIV, 1 gig of RAM, 80 Gig hard drive.

I've tried:
-many different disks
-using the cdrom.img, hd.img, other.img etc...
-copying files to the new c: hard drive
-executing fdisk /mbr

the only thing that the computer will boot to is an old Windows ME disk.

any help?

dt

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jlevie

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Darrell Thomas

ASKER

I found the solution: I needed to flash the BIOS. It was corrupted. Here's what I did:

-Looked at the p4B website, and sure enough there were updated BIOS programs:
http://www.asus.com.tw/support/download/item.aspx?ModelName=P4B&Type=BIOS

-I downloaded those (along with the AFLASH utility program) and used it to re flash my BIOS.

-specifically version 1010.bin says that it corrects the "won't boot to LINUX disks" problem.

-this fixed a bunch of other problems that my computer was having too.

-Hope this helps anyone else with the same problem.
dt

jlevie

That makes sense.