Topic: Trouble with boot.img

[Jon]

I am having trouble booting with the floppy created by /cdrom/images/boot.img
It gives the following message "Boot failed: please change disks and press a key to continue".
I have tried it on two different computers, just in case it was a hardware issue, with the same results. I have also downloaded the iso straight from e-smith ftp site, just in case my first attempt iso was corrupt.
Is there any way to hack boot.img or download a working boot.img?
Thanks in advance
Jon

[Jon]

To anyone who is experiencing the same problem, I found a fix. The bad boot.img is on both the e-smith-4.1.2.iso I downloaded from linuxiso.org and ftp.e-smith.net.
I downloaded the RedHat 7.x iso and created the cdrom. Once I have the cdrom, I can make a new boot floppy from the boot.img. I copied the INITRD.IMG from the RedHat boot floppy to the E-Smith boot floppy and the installation finally worked.
I am assuming that the INITRD.IMG is corrupt.
Anybody know where if there could have been an easier way? Is it possible to simply download the boot.img from somewhere instead of going through all that?
Thanks in advance.

[richard]

I have the same issue. Did you ever get a response to this?

[Jon]

Found the answer myself. My problem was that I was making bad iso cds. I was using an old parrallel port HP CdWriter Plus which gave me isos with very subtle defects. Everytime I burned a new E-Smith Cd, different parts of the boot.img disk would work. After burning on my friend's reliable cdburner, I got a good copy.
    Also, are you using old hardware? My original E-Smith box was going to be a Adaptec SCSI 2940 with Intel Triton chipset (FX). Apparently RH7.x balks at both of them. So if you are pretty confident that your boot disk is good, check your hardware and verify it against Red Hat's Bugzilla. And don't believe what their HCL says - according to their hardware compatibility list, I shouldn't have any problems with my Adaptec 2940. A good way to check if the problem lies with E-Smith or Red Hat is to try to install with RH7.x first - If you see the Red Hat install go bad, it's not E-Smith's fault.
    Dang, this sorta reminds me of installing Windoze....

[Kyle]

I found that disabling the bios on the adaptec controller, and booting to cd on an ide-cdrom fixed this problem. Then once the installation is complete, during the first reboot, change the adaptec controller to enable the bios and it boots fine.