Tired of booting from floppy

[dsavage@peaknet.net]

I've got a boot-time problem with my Athlon/Enigma system that forces me to use
a boot floppy. This has had an unexpected consequence: I cannot use any of the
more recent Red Hat kernels. Even when compressed, the size of their images and
that of their corresponding initrd files are too large for a 1.44M floppy.  The
latest kernel I can use is 2.4.7-10.

Mine is not a simple system. It contains a MegaRAID 428, BusLogic BT-958, and
Promise-100 card. That's the order in which their BIOSes initialize at boot
time. I have Enigma installed on a 60G Maxtor connected to the Promise-100
controller.  Since it's #3 in the boot-up sequence, I can't figure out how to
boot GRUB directly from the Maxtor (/dev/hde). I must use a boot floppy instead.
Surely there's a better way.

Before you ask about the MegaRAID, let me just say I'm having all kinds of fun
hunting for the right combination SCSI ID wire connections in my 8-drive
external enclosure. If/when I ever get that sorted out, I'll have 63G of U+W I
can boot to directly as /dev/sda. In the mean time I'm forced to use the
Maxtor/Promise combo, and a boot floppy. Not to put too fine a point on things,
but this option sucks.
Any suggestions?

--Doc Savage
  Fairview Heights, IL




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