The very first thing you will need when your system cannot boot from the hard disk, for any of the reasons we mentioned before, will be a boot disk. A boot disk will allow you to boot your system up and, in a matter of minutes, enable you to undo the thing that has made your system unusable.
Open a terminal and type the following, as root:
# mkbootdisk --device /dev/fd0 `uname -r` |
and strike the Enter key, then follow the instructions given on screen.
One parameter needed by mkbootdisk is the --device [device] option, which tells mkbootdisk which device you want to write the boot disk to. In our example, we chose /dev/fd0 which is the first floppy drive in the system. In 99.9% of cases that should work. If it does not, just choose the right device for your floppy drive.
The other parameter needed is the [kernel-version] option, which tells mkbootdisk which kernel you want to put on the floppy. In our example, we use `uname -r` which gives as a result the name of the current running kernel. Thus, the example given will create a boot disk in the first floppy drive with the current running kernel on it.
Please note that this will create a boot disk that is based on your current running kernel with all the modules and stuff which that kernel uses.