copying 5.25 boot disk to 3.5

[Jack F. Vogel]

In article <35947 at iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> hchen at silver.ucs.indiana.edu (H. Chen) writes:
>In article <1688 at ursa-major.SPDCC.COM> eli at ursa-major.spdcc.COM (Steve Elias) writes:
>>does anyone know how to copy a 5.25 boot disk to 3.5???
>>i'm going crazy with this Zenith 386 machine!  it must have the 3.5
>>drive as primary, unless i get a special cable.
>>
>>"dd" can copy 5.25 to 3.5 media, but how to deal with the boot track?
>>is there a special blocksize necessary???
 
[ suggestion to simply copy files deleted.....]
 
>I did this way for dos 2.0 (or 2.1?) disk.  The 3.5 disk was formated
>into 360k.
 
??HUH?? I don't think we are talking about dos here. I would suggest you
refrain from posting when you don't understand what you are talking about.

The following courtesy Piercarlo Grandi (I think you're right Piercarlo, we
DO need a frequently asked questions monthly posting, I just wouldn't want to
be responsible!!):

Piercarlo writes:
->
->The usual answer is RTFM. A bootable floppy, be it any density,
->size, whatever, has the first track that contains the bootstrap
->(finding the file in /etc that contains the floppy bootstrap is
->left as an exercise to the reader), and the remaining tracks
->contain a filesystem, into which you can put what you want, but
->usually a miniscule root.
->
->The device files /dev/*dsk/f*t (i.e. those ending in 't') will
->give access to the entire floppy, first track inclusive, the
->other will only let you access from the second track onwards.
->
->If you want to duplicate a bootable floppy, just use the device file
->that ends in 't' (/dev/rdsk/f0t will work almost always).
->
->If you want to create a bootable floppy, just copy the boostrap file
->onto the device file that maps the entire floppy, and then mkfs and
->fill the rest. For example:
->
->	cp /etc/flboot /dev/dsk/f0t
->	mkfs /dev/rdsk/f0 <size>:<inodes> <gap> <cylsize>
->	labelit/dev/rdsk/f0 install flop
->	mount /dev/dsk/f0 /install
->	find <miniroot> -depth -print | cpio -pdlmuav /install
->

Disclaimer: These are my opinions, not my employer's

-- 
Jack F. Vogel			jackv at seas.ucla.edu
AIX Technical Support	              - or -
Locus Computing Corp.		jackv at ifs.umich.edu