lilo and changing where it boots from

true_atlantis · 11-30-2003, 01:42 AM

for soem reason when i set up my computer, i had my primary hard drive as my secondary slave... now i have a second hard drive, and i want my primary hard drive to be my secondary master and my secondary hard drive to be my secondary slave, however i am getting problems when trying to start up my computer, and i think i need to edit lilo.conf.... here is what my lilo.conf is right now

boot=/dev/hdd
map=/boot/map
vga=normal
default="linux"
keytable=/boot/us.klt
prompt
nowarn
timeout=100
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
disk=/dev/hdd bios=0x80
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux"
root=/dev/hdd6
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="quiet devfs=mount hdb=ide-scsi acpi=off"
vga=788
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux-nonfb"
root=/dev/hdd6
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="devfs=mount hdb=ide-scsi acpi=off"
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="failsafe"
root=/dev/hdd6
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="failsafe devfs=nomount hdb=ide-scsi acpi=off"
read-only
other=/dev/hdd1
label="windows"
table=/dev/hdd
other=/dev/fd0
label="floppy"
unsafe

at the top, i cahnged everything to this... and it didnt work, anyone know how i can make this work???

boot=/dev/hdc
map=/boot/map
vga=normal
default="linux"
keytable=/boot/us.klt
prompt
nowarn
timeout=100
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
disk=/dev/hdc bios=0x80
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux"
root=/dev/hdc6

slakmagik · 11-30-2003, 02:01 AM

Two dumb questions

:

did you run /sbin/lilo after you made the changes?
why aren't they *primary* master and slave?

I've been swapping around drives lately and it worked for me - seems like what you've got should work for you.

Three questions, actually - what 'problems' and with what OS?

Oh - you need to edit /etc/fstab as well.

true_atlantis · 11-30-2003, 12:49 PM

no, i didnt run /sbin/lilo, i just reset my computer... they arent the primary because.... i dont know, because i wasnt paying attention while putting my computer together... and when i run it, it will get into lilo, but when i try to run linux it will say error in hdd6, try passing init= to kernel... im runing mandrake 9.1... and is there any other files i need to edit?

true_atlantis · 11-30-2003, 01:11 PM

ok, now im really screwed.... i tried changing the /etc/fstab and now when i try to boot up linux, it wont even work... i can get into a shell command as root, but it wont let me edit /etc/fstab even if i try to change the permission.... WHY IS THIS SO DIFFIUCLUT!!!

slakmagik · 11-30-2003, 02:03 PM

Okay - well, lilo.conf tells what should be written but you have to run lilo to actually write it. Just rebooting won't work. This is one thing a lot of people prefer about grub but it's absolutely no problem to do. If it's an issue, you can probably just make a 'configlilo' shell script like

myeditor /etc/lilo.conf
/sbin/lilo

- and, actually, I don't remember but Mandrake's probably got some nifty GUI for it.

Might be easier, at some point, to go ahead and hook 'em up as primary but you had it working before, so you can get it working again, either way.

I'm lost though - you got an error about 'hdd6' in one post. Is that still an issue? Now you can boot without errors and login as root but can't edit /etc/fstab?

Try 'root=/dev/hdc6 rw' or, after booting, 'mount -w -n -o remount /'. I'm guessing - guessing, now - that the reason you can't edit the file even as root is because /'s mounted read-only. But I'm not sure if I'm following everything. If you can get to a root prompt without boot errors, you should be most of the way there.

If this doesn't work, guru help is needed. I usually just wing it, myself.

true_atlantis · 11-30-2003, 02:27 PM

here is what happened... i editied /etc/fstab and i had some boot problems... now when i try to boot i get into this "repair filesystem" place and i cant do anything.... now my /etc/fstab is blank, and i cant edit it at all... i have a /etc/fstab.OLD which is what i want, but i cant move it because it wont let me write to /etc/fstab... i tried the mount -w -n -o remount / and it had an error about /etc/fstab.... do you know where i can get a mandrake 9.1 bootdisk image... because my boot disk right now sucks, its some slackware one because i didnt make one when i installed mandrake... and you were rigth when you said that / is mounted as read only, but i cant remount it! jeez, sometimes linux really gets on my nerves

true_atlantis · 11-30-2003, 02:29 PM

oh, and the problem that i had with running /sbin/lilo was that when i ran that my hd was connected as hdd and when i tried running that the lilo.conf was pointing to hdc, but there was no hdc attached, so after running that it gave an error saying that hdc did not exist...

true_atlantis · 11-30-2003, 03:01 PM

if i try to less or cat /etc/fstab it gives me an input/output error...

true_atlantis · 12-01-2003, 04:26 PM

here is the exact error when i try

rm -f /etc/fstab

rm: unable to stat '/etc/fstab' : Input/Output error.

i am pretty sure the file is corrupt, and i was trying to find something about it on google, and i found this, if it helps, but i still dont have a solution on how to edit /etc/fstab

"The point is that if there is corruption in the filesystem then the
immutable flag may have be switched on accedently.

You notice this on ext2 when an inode has been corrupted. There's a 50%
chance the immutable bit may have been set, leading people to wonder why
they can't delete the file even as root.

I don't know whether reiserfs has such a bit though."

slakmagik · 12-01-2003, 04:47 PM

Well, I'm learning all about how little I know about the filesystem and permissions today with a bunch of directories that won't go away.

Sounds like you might be needing to run fsck. Came across this bit of weirdness:

Code:

For compatibility with Mandrake distributions whose boot scripts depend upon  an  unau-
thorized  UI  change  to  the  fsck  program,  if a filesystem type of loop is found in
fslist, it is treated as if opts=loop were specified as an argument to the -t option.

Anyway - like I say "Calling all gurus!"

But for future reference, make sure all your drives are all hooked up and everything's how you want it before rebooting. I can screw up all kinds of things and have additional terminals to go to to fix stuff but, once you reboot, what's done is done without a lot more effort.

Um, as far as the bootdisk, maybe see if Mandrake has some emergency disks on a mirror or something. You should be okay, though, as something like Tom's Root/Boot would be used for recovery and isn't a Mandrake disk. As long as the box comes up and the filesystem's accessible, I guess. Just need to figure out how to get to where you can edit the file again.

true_atlantis · 12-01-2003, 04:56 PM

yeah... i have a rescue disk, and i can mount /dev/hdc6 on /mnt but when i try editing /mnt/etc/fstab i get the same error...