I was using Vi to delete the section for a non-existent windows partition in my lilo.conf file ( mandrake 9.0 distro, btw ), and somehow is started deleting lines above the section I had targeted. I tried exiting Vi with just "x" so it wouldn't write any changes, but it wrote them anyway.

The section that was partiall deleted by accident was a DOS partition that holds the boot loader for my Windows XP partion. Anyhow, I know something is wrong because when I run "lilo" it tells me there should be a "To" value above the final section of the lilo file. I added the word "To", but it of course expects a value there. I have no idea what it wants, but here is my lilo.conf file ( with the word "to" that I added.

boot=/dev/sda
map=/boot/map
vga=normal
default=linux
keytable=/boot/us.klt
prompt
nowarn
timeout=100
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
ignore-table
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label=linux
root=/dev/sda5
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="quiet devfs=mount"
vga=788
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label=linux-nonfb
root=/dev/sda5
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="devfs=mount"
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label=failsafe
root=/dev/sda5
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="failsafe devfs=nomount"
read-only
other=/dev/sda1
label=dos
table=/dev/sda
map-drive=0x81
to
other=/dev/fd0
label=floppy
unsafe

Anyone have a lilo file with a DOS entry that may help shed light on what I need to add? Remember, I am using Mandrake 9.0 , kernel 2.4.19-16mdk.

Thank You in advance!

normally you would have somethinglike this

map-drive=0x80
to=0x81
map-drive=0x81
to=0x80

ok, now I know what the map-drive and the "to" are for( to trick windows into thinking it is booting from first ide drive ).
Note that the DOS partion is on SDA along with my linux drive, and that is the boot disk for my system. I am wondering if I paniced too fast and perhaps should just delete the map-drive part as it could have been from the deleted section.

FYI I tried setting "to" to 0x80, 0x82, 0x83, with no change. (I get the "missing hal.dll" error every time ).
To clarify things, my boot drive is a RAID set that is seen by linux as SDA , the DOS partition is on this drive, and boots Windows XP from an IDE drive the built-in IDE controller on my motherboard, but again that is not my boot device.

Will let you folks know what happens, and thank you for your help.

for xp i use this

other = /dev/hda2
label = Windows
optional


or yours would be where xp is

I removed the two lines I was worried about and now it works fine. Thank you for your help.

cool