[vox-tech] Boot Disk Not a True Rescue

[Edwin P. Groot]

     Hi there,
     Hope you guys can solve something that's been bothering me.  I am
using a Debian 3 distribution as a workstation at work, and I had made the
boot floppy during the installation process.  I tested this boot floppy for
safety's sake, and it says it will mount root from /dev/sda1.  It not only
does that, but starts the init process on that partition, starting up my
workstation in the usual way.
     Now what use is that floppy if that partition is damaged, or I hosed
some files while recompiling the kernel?  At the boot: prompt on this
floppy I entered
linux.bin root=/dev/fd0
and it says "VFS: Insert root floppy and press ENTER" after starting the
kernel.  I simply hit Enter because all I have is a boot floppy, but the
kernel became panicky and halted.  In my opinion this floppy is not playing
with a full deck of cards.  Where do I get a root floppy with tools to
repair with when things go wrong?

     TIA, Edwin