dual boot - blinking cursor after selecting LINUX at win2k loader
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dual boot - blinking cursor after selecting LINUX at win2k loader
Could someone please help me figure out what I'm doing wrong here? I have found references to the "dual boot blinking cursor" problem, but no solution.
I set about configuring my PC to dual boot between Win2K and Linux (7.2). This is what I've done so far:
I started with a new Dell 8200 with one 40GB hard drive installed running Win2K , I purchased a 2nd 40GB hard drive and installed it. I then booted Win2K and used partition magic 7.0 to create the following partitions on the 2nd drive:
I then booted off the RedHat 7.2 install CD and configured the install as follows:
Linux swap -> /dev/hdb5
Linux "/" -> /dev/hdb6
Use LILO as the boot loader
Install boot loader record on
/dev/hdb6 First sector of boot partition
The install went normally and I was able at this point to boot from the boot floppy created during the install setup just fine.
I then wanted to get the Win2K bootloader to allow me to dual-boot into either Windows or Linux, so I performed the following steps:
booted linux
dd if=/dev/hdb6 of=/bootsect.lnx bs=512 count=1
inserted a formated floppy
mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 /mnt
cp /bootsect.lnx /mnt
umount /mnt
reboot to win2k
copy a:\bootsect.lnx c:\
added "c:\bootsect.lnx="LINUX" to end of c:\boot.ini
attrib +s +h c:\bootsect.lnx
Now, when I boot window, I get the boot menu that specifies windows 2000 or LINUX. If I select LINUX, the disk light goes on for about 10 seconds then stops, but the blinking cursor remains in the top-left corner of the display and nothing happens.
By all accounts this has been done successfully before, but I've obviously missed something.
I don't know if this will solve the problem. Boot into linux using your boot disk. Run fdisk -l /dev/hdb and make sure /dev/hdb6 is the root ' / ' partition. If it is, check /etc/lilo.conf file and make sure these two lines are in there:
boot=/dev/hdb6
root=/dev/hdb6
If it's not hdb6, then change the two lines above to the correct partition.
Next, run as root /sbin/lilo. Then repeat all the steps that you used before to add linux to w2k's boot menu.
According to here, lilo is just letting you know that it's not being installed on the first drive. lilo expects to be on the first drive so that it can boot linux. In this case, you don't want it on the first drive. So, just ignore the error.
The second one needs to be taken care of. It says to use lba32 instead of linear in the /etc/lilo.conf file. So, edit lilo.conf and replace linear with lba32. Then run /sbin/lilo and see if you get any errors except for the warning about not being on the first drive.
If you only get the warning about not being on the first drive, then repeat the steps to install linux in the boot menu of w2k.
Is the fat32 partition on your linux drive for data or does it have the msdos operating system on it? If it's just for data, then you don't need these three lines at the end of the lilo.conf file.
Linuxcool, thank you very much for the help. As it turns out, your help got me closer to where I wanted to be. Instead of completely hanging, I was getting the first "L" of lilo printed (without any error codes) before it hung.
I spent several hours reading the results of a "lilo hangs" google search and read several places that LILO uses the bios to load the 2nd stage boot loader. Well guess what? I had forgotten to enable the 2nd hdd in my bios setup. As soon as I did that it all works as advertised. I'm very happy.
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