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Old 11-04-2004, 06:41 AM   #1
Junior41180
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base gentoo installed, can't boot, need to repair lilo. how?


as the title says, I need to know how I can repair lilo, or maybe rewrite it, while not being able to boot into gentoo.

I've been up for hours doing a stage 1 install, and forgot to set a few things in lilo. so i need to set those and be able to boot into gentoo. so i can finish completing the install.

anyone know how to fix this problem?

thanks.
 
Old 11-04-2004, 06:58 AM   #2
n0sr
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I don't use gentoo, but I would boot the install disk(s) (either cd or floppies) and mount your linux partition under /mnt or similar. Then you can change into the newly installed directory tree and make your changes.
 
Old 11-04-2004, 03:00 PM   #3
Junior41180
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Quote:
Originally posted by n0xvb
I don't use gentoo, but I would boot the install disk(s) (either cd or floppies) and mount your linux partition under /mnt or similar. Then you can change into the newly installed directory tree and make your changes.
tried that, but one of the things i forgot to do was add the boot= line, so it's not using any drive technically to boot to for lilo, and I can't execute lilo to comit the changes, so lilo knows to add itself to the mbr of the drive.
 
Old 11-04-2004, 08:16 PM   #4
n0sr
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I run Slackware so YMMV, but I had a similar problem and just booted from the boot/root install disks, when I got signed in as root I mounted the existing Linux partition

mount /mnt /dev/hdf1

then ran:

/mnt/sbin/liloconfig

liloconfig will put the lilo bootloader in MBR, which works for me with XP.
 
Old 11-05-2004, 03:57 AM   #5
crashmeister
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boot the gentoo CD and do:

mount /dev/hda3 /mnt/gentoo
mkdir /mnt/gentoo/boot
mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/gentoo/boot

to mount the partitions (use the ones you made) and then chroot into the thing:
mount -t proc none /mnt/gentoo/proc
chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash

If it chrooting doesn't work try to add:
mount -t dev none /mnt/gentoo/dev

Last edited by crashmeister; 11-10-2004 at 04:55 AM.
 
Old 11-06-2004, 02:17 PM   #6
Junior41180
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ok, so i ended up reinstalling. and now all I'm getting is a blank screen, and a flashing cursor. I folowed the online install guide to the letter and still it does not boot. anyone have any ideas why?

I copied the bzImage,System.map and .config over to /boot as it said, I did not use genkernel, so there was no initrd to copy as well. using lilo as the boot loader. I'm begining to think gentoo doesn't like me.


this is on a separate drive from windows, and the boot loader is on the same drive as linux. all on hdb which is 20 gb's.

my partitioning scheme is

hdb1 = boot @ 64MB's ext2
hdb2 = swap @ 1024MB's
hdb3 = root @ 6.5GB's ext3
hdb4 = Extended
hdb5 = home @ ~11 GB's ext3

my lilo.conf looked like this

boot=/dev/hdb
prompt
timeout=100
default=gentoo
vga=792

image=/boot/kernel-2.6.9-gentoo-r1
label=gentoo
read-only
root=/dev/hdb3

other=/dev/hda1
label=windows


is that right? or am i also supposed to have System.map (systemmap-2.6.9-gentoo-r1) also in there, i noticed MDK has a link to it iirc.


Thanks all.

Last edited by Junior41180; 11-06-2004 at 02:25 PM.
 
Old 11-10-2004, 04:45 AM   #7
n0sr
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Yes, that looks correct. I would try booting into a different vga mode.

change the vga= line to say

vga=normal

Then try it.

You have to run /sbin/lilo after you make any changes, that will
cause the loader to point to the correct kernel image also.
 
  


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