How to use a Floppy to Boot from USB: If your system does not support booting from a USB device but does have a floppy drive, this guide will show you how to create a floppy boot disk to boot Linux from a USB flash drive using a Grub Boot floppy disk.
When using a boot floppy with a Grub boot loader, Grub locates the USB partition and then attempts to boot by loading vmlinuz and initrd.gz from the USB device.
Using a Floppy Image to USB Boot
NOTE: While the original purpose of this method was for older versions of Bootable Pendrive Linux, this technique is still useful for systems requiring a floppy boot to load a USB device.
Floppy Boot Requirements
- Linux CD/USB or installed OS
- Floppy drive/Floppy disk
- Your Pendrive Linux USB flash drive
Using a Floppy to Boot from USB
To get your USB drive booting from a floppy disk image:
- Insert a blank floppy disk into your floppy drive.
- Open a terminal and type the following to become the root user:
sudo su - Then to get the zipped PDL floppy boot image:
wget https://pendrivelinux.com/downloads/pdlfloppy.img.gz - Next, to unzip the file and direct copy it to your floppy disk:
gzip -dc pdlfloppy.img.gz | dd of=/dev/fd0 - Now, reboot your PC:
- During system post, use a hotkey to enter your system BIOS.
- Set your Boot Menu to boot from floppy and save your changes (F10).
- Proceed to boot your computer from the floppy disk.
- From the floppy booted Grub Menu, select one of the following boot options:
- Pendrivelinux (hd0,0) if the PC has no other ATA/USB/SCSI drives
- Pendrivelinux (hd1,0) if the PC has other ATA/USB/SCSI drives
Floppy Boot Troubleshooting Tips
If you still can't boot, try the following:
- Press C at the Grub Menu
- Type find /casper/vmlinuz and make a note of which drive is displayed
- Press Esc and then Press e
- Press e again to edit the root (hd0,0) line
- Change the line to reflect the drive displayed in step 2
- Press Enter, then Enter again to boot
You should now be using your Floppy Image to USB Boot!