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  • From: baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • To: baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [BL] LILO and booting problems
  • Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2008 01:47:33 +0000 (UTC)


Thanks for that! I knew how to edit this from
DOS but it really seemed a pain, with all the
resetting of attributes etc. etc. Doing it from
Linux was much easier.

I have also used BL (2 floppy) to delete files from Windows 98 that I could not delete with DOS for some unknown reason (not hidden, just not removable).



I tried following Sindi's suggestion of editing
/etc/lilo.conf to put boot.b and the kernel
("zimage", right?) into a new /boot directory
on /dev/hda1 (my Windows partition), but the
computer still boots directly into DOS/Windows
unless i boot with the BasicLinux floppy disk.

I'm thinking that it must be because my /dev/hda1
is 2 GB, and so the /boot directly may still be
beyond the 1024-cylinder limit.

My first partition is never more than 500MB.
I wonder if you can boot with lilo by putting the kernel and boot.b (and chain.b?) onto a lilo boot floppy disk and editing lilo.conf to match.


My fdisk -l, Partition Magic, and GParted all
show that there is a small partition for the
Compaq diagnostic programs at the beginning of
the disk. There's still some unused space there,
so i also tried creating a /boot directory in
that partition and editing /etc/lilo.conf to put
boot.b and zimage there, thinking that if this
partition really is at the beginning of the drive
then it should boot.

But after using fdisk to make that the active
partition, it still wouldn't boot Linux.
The computer booted directly into the Compaq
diagnostic program.


I'm thinking now that maybe somehow LILO is
not installing itself correctly. When i use
mount /dev/hda1 /hd and have the /hd/boot
entries in /etc/lilo.conf, and then run lilo -v,
i get this message:

------------------
Reading boot sector from /hd/boot
open /hd/boot: Is a directory
-------------------

Is that telling me that there is a problem?

Also, how can i install LILO to a boot floppy
while i'm experimenting?

Change /dev/hda1 to /dev/fd0 in lilo.conf and it should write to the
floppy disk instead of the hard drive. But the kernel and boot.b may also need to be on the floppy disk for this to work, which means editing lilo.conf to have it look in /fd/boot/ rather than /hd/boot or /boot.
I am curious if this will really work.

Should i finally just install LILO into the MBR?

How can i check the MBR to find out if i already
did install LILO there?

Have you tried reading a lilo HOWTO? They are mostly over my head but I did learn about putting image and boot.b into another partition that way.
I also read that you don't need to do this for a later lilo, but that did not seem to be true.
Sindi

-monz










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