Hi,
I've been lookng around here and googling for help on my problem but can't find anything that helps me out of the hole I've dug myself into and that I can understand (very newbie syndrome).

The problem: dual booting Slackware 9.1 and Win XP. I decided I needed more space for Linux, so I used Partition Magic to get more space. Now when I choose Linux from the main boot menu (boot magic passes off the linux work to lilo) I get Lilo starting up with L999999999999. So it seems that lilo can't find something it needs - the master boot record for the linux partition because PM moved it relative to the beginning of the partition?

Is there anyway that I can get lilo pointed in the right direction so I can get back to using linux? And can this be done without doing a complete reinstall? That would doubtless be a learning experience, but I did kind of like the way I had things set up and I feel like a total idiot for messing with partitions and getting burnt like this.

Thanks,
-geomatt

Version 1: Only the boot record of your linux is damaged.
I suggest you to boot a from a rescue disk to fix your lilo configuration.
You can use your distro's cd 1 or knoppix or what else boots a linux from cd or floppy to fix is.

Version 2: PM erased (or damaged) your whole linux
I've never juggled with linux partitions under windows, so i can't tell you if PM messed everything up. But could be (hope not though).
Next time you should probably think about using linux itself to do such things (fdisk).

Thanks for the response.

The good news is that linux is still there. I can boot from a cd and mount the linux partition which seems to be intact. I've also poked around in the lilo.conf file.

The bad news is: I have no clue about how to fix the lilo.conf. What do you suggest? I'll have to boot from the cd to get a print out of that file, and I can then post it if necessary.

Yes, I should be using the Linux tools. I guess I was taken in by the PM hype "no data destruction" and all that.

-geomatt

Here's the uncommented lines of lilo.conf:

--------------------------------------------------

boot="/dev/hda4"
timeout="1"
vga="773"
image="/boot/vmlinuz"
root="/dev/hda4"
label="linux"
read-only # non-UMSDO filesystems should be mounted read-only for checking

append="hdc=ide-scsi"

------------------------------------------------

-geomatt

mmh, looks ok. Are those partitions still the right ones (where your linux system is on)?
Or did PM somehow changed the partitions? Or you inserted a patition?

The partitions are correct as confirmed by fdisk -l. I didn't insert anything, just resized the existing partitions.

The /etc/lilo.conf does (most probably) not need to be fixed - if you did not change it, that is...

What probably needs to be done here, is: rewriting your mbr using lilo - if lilo is what you where using, when it still worked...

to do that: issue "lilo -v" this should work - IF you did not move your partitions around - but you just resized them, right? So the names and location is still the same?
Otherwise you would have to change /etc/lilo.conf to reflect your current disk-layout

If I boot up the system from the Slackware cd and then run lilo -v it fails to find /etc/lilo.conf. So I guess I need to mount /dev/hda4 in such a way that lilo can find the configuration file. I've just been mounting it as follows:
mount /dev/hda4 /mnt
as a convenient way of looking around on my linux partition. Should I do things differently?

I do not know anything about your disk-layout!

But: if you boot up your system - and it IS running - then there should be a directory named /etc with all the configuration files in it - if not: Are you sure you are running your system? - and not some rescue-system on the slackware-CD?

In that case it is a little mor complicated - but just a little...first verify that you are running your system - then:

cd /
ls -l --> lists all your directories...
cd /etc
ls -l --> lists everything in /etc --> if this is not there - you need to find out, WHY!

ls -l /etc/lilo* would list every filename starting with lilo

Sorry, didn't mean to assume omniscience in my last post

I guess I am not in fact running my system, but the minimal linux system needed to install slackware from scratch... /etc only has a few files in it that don't look anything like my stuff. And no lilo.conf there.

Thanks for walking me through this stuff.

-Geomatt

Fixed it!!! Woohooo! That was scary.

I just did a chroot to the directory where I had mounted hda4 and then ran lilo -v. Rebooted and it worked.

Thanks for the help!

-geomatt

...there you go - cool!
the chroot thing would have been the next thing I'd have suggested