[ltp] a newbie struggling with LILO

[Pam Huntley]

>There are several recovery images available on the net

The Red Hat 8.0 cd also has a rescue mode, I think you type "linux rescue"
when you get to the initial screen.  This will boot off the CD, search for
your RH8 installation, and mount it under /mnt/sysimage.  Then when you get
to the prompt, you just chroot /mnt/sysimage, and you can perform
maintainence on your system.

Then you can examine your lilo.conf (it used to go in /etc), and see if it
looks like its correct (ie two stanzas, one for linux, one for XP, with the
correct hard drive partitions referenced).  Then, once you think it's okay,
you can run 'lilo' and it will tell you if it was able to process the file,
or give you some error messages, hopefully a helpful one.

Or, you can install grub if you want.  It's the default for RH8 now,
although I'm not sure if that means it's better or not.  To do this, you'd
need to edit your /boot/grub/grub.conf file, it should have the same
partition/stanza info as lilo, even if the format is a little different.
Then you'd run grub-install, and after that, you only have to modify your
grub.conf, you don't have to re-install it after each change, unlike lilo.

FYI, if you don't know what your partitions are numbered as (ie /dev/hda1,
hda2, etc), you can run fdisk /dev/hda, then type p to print out your
partition table as linux understands it.  Then q to exit.  Becareful not to
type anything else (besides m for help), fdisk can really mess up your hard
drive if you don't know what you're doing.

Hope that helps some...

Pam






|---------+--------------------------------------->
|         |           ravi channavajhala          |
|         |           <rkc0818@yahoo.com>         |
|         |           Sent by:                    |
|         |           linux-thinkpad-admin@linux-t|
|         |           hinkpad.org                 |
|         |                                       |
|         |                                       |
|         |           01/06/2003 06:21 PM         |
|         |           Please respond to           |
|         |           linux-thinkpad              |
|         |                                       |
|---------+--------------------------------------->
  >-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
  |                                                                                                           |
  |       To:       linux-thinkpad@linux-thinkpad.org                                                         |
  |       cc:                                                                                                 |
  |       Subject:  Re: [ltp] a newbie struggling with LILO                                                   |
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  |                                                                                                           |
  >-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|



So what if you dont have a boot floppy?

There are several recovery images available on the net
(get them from redhat site), download these images,
run rawrite (provided as a separate utility) from XP
to copy these images to floppy.  Boot from this
floppy, mount your /dev/hda[x] on /mnt/sysimage or
something like that.  chroot to this dir, look at your
lilo config.  Reinstall lilo, if needed.  Better yet,
install grub and make it your bootloader.

regards,
-ravi

Disclaimer:  I've not used XP, I still use NT-4.0 on
my dual booted T20.

--- Katsumi Matsumoto <kmatsumo@splash.princeton.edu>
wrote:
> I'm having some problem booting, and I am hoping to
> get an advise from
> someone.
>
> I just recently installed RH8 on my T30.  Having
> followed the many advises
> posted on the web, I was able to partition the 60GB
> hard drive, while
> keeping intact the hidden XP recovery partition.
> Since I want a dual
> boot, I "recovered" XP in the first partition (also
> kept the recovery
> partition and made recovery repair disk) and
> installed successfully RH8 on
> the remaining partitions (/boot, /swap, and /).
>
> Since T30 can have either a CD drive or a floppy
> drive in the single ultra
> bay but not both, I could not make a boot-floppy for
> booting linux (I was
> going to do this after booting into linux), because
> I installed linux from
> CDs.  During the installation, I chose LILO to boot
> off of and designated
> MBR to install LILO.  I chose DOS as the default OS
> over linux during the
> boot loader configuration.
>
> Now after the seemingly successfully installation, I
> turn on my T30, and
> Windows XP comes up.  Contrary to my expectation, I
> do not get some kind
> of a LILO screen that would allow me to choose
> either XP or linux.  Why?
>
> Since I could not make a boot-floppy for booting
> linux, basically I'm
> stuck here...
>
> I'd appreciate any helpful hint to activate LILO.
> Should I have used GRUB
> instead?
>
> Thanks,
> -Katsumi
>
> --
> The linux-thinkpad mailing list home page is at:
>
http://mailman.linux-thinkpad.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-thinkpad


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