Question about hard disk boot

[Jit Keong Tan]

Attention UNIX gurus:

HI, I have a question about booting up from the hard disk and tapedrive.

If the hard disk refuses to boot up, is it possible to boot
up from somewhere else such as the tapedrive ?  Then proceed to
mount the hard disk and salvage the hard drive without booting it.

I read the man page on mkboottape(1M) and don't quite understand
this line:

>     Unless you have means to create a stand alone program this utility is
>     useless.

What kind of stand alone program ?  Does this mean I have to write
a program that runs on its own without any system service from kernel ?
If this is what it means, how to load this program that I'll be writing ?

Thanks for any helpful hints.

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Jit Keong Tan     | internet: jit at slic.cellbio.duke.edu
(919) 684-8098    | bitnet  : tan00001 at dukemc.bitnet
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U.S. Mail:
Duke University Medical Center
Department Of Cell Biology
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Durham, NC 27710