rescue floppies and initrd

[Ross Boylan <ross@biostat.ucsf.edu>]

I think that to make a self-contained rescue floppy I need to include
the initrd image as well as the kernel (with an initrd kernel, which I
understand all the recent ones are).

My initrd image is considerably bigger than a floppy, so I don't think
that will work.  What should I do?

I can think of several options, all of which have some problems:
1) make a resuce floppy that references the hard disk.  Done, but
obviously not a robust backup.
2) build a kernel without initrd.  A lot of work, and problematic for
some setups (e.g., evms potentially requires initrd).
3) user Debian or other generic rescue floppies.  These won't be
compatible with my particular system, if it's still around (e.g., wrong
path to load libraries).
4) burn a rescue CD... never tried it, just thought of it.

Any advice, or other options?  Thanks.
-- 
Ross Boylan                                      wk: (415) 502-4031
530 Parnassus Avenue (Library) rm 115-4          ross@biostat.ucsf.edu
Dept of Epidemiology and Biostatistics           hm: (415) 550-1062
University of California, San Francisco
San Francisco, CA 94143-0840