I am running a dual OS of WinXP and Mandrake 9.0. Recently when I rebooted my computer it began to start up, but then went to a black screen and began typing out L 99 99 99 99 . . . I have read some other posts which encounted the same problem, but have been no help to me so far. When my computer boots up it goes HD>CD>Floppy. Therefore, when I put in a boot/recovery disc it isn't read. The computer goes straight to the message after trying to boot from the hard drive.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Without going overboard, the more you can tell us about what you've found that hasn't worked (aka - your reading of other posts that didn't help) gives a better rounded picture, so we know what links/suggestions not to give you.
With your boot process, have you tried to change that in the BIOS? Usually takes about 30 secs.

If you have a boot floppy, change the BIOS option to boot floppy before HD.

From man lilo that exit code 99 means invalid second stage index sector.
The XP cd should have a recovery command, something like fixmbr. If you have and win98 boot disk the command's fdisk /mbr

Hehe I didn't even know about fixmbr. Thanks, Proud!

The fact that the message comes up immeadiately is the problem. I have been unable to enter my BIOS and don't know how to get around it. I turn on my computer and get the Toshiba splash screen - it then goes right to typing out L 99 99 99 99 and stops after about 10 lines. I have tried, unsuccessfuly, to enter my system BIOS and don't know what to try next.

Well it's almost certainly from lilo, and so either blindly press Delete, or F1 or F8 or whichever key gets you into your BIOS options... or maybe remove the primary drive and then boot up.

I have managed to enter my system BIOS and changed my boot order so I can boot from a CD or floppy disc. I can do a full format using the recovery CD , but I would like to try to recover the info on my computer if at all possible. Any ideas on how to do this?

Hey Trevor,
I downloaded a Tecra 8100 BIOS update utility, and part of the readme said that to get to the BIOS:
At startup by holding down the F12 key.
I have no idea what kind of toshiba you have, but I assume it's a laptop, and that the F12 mantra is consistent across the spectrum of Toshiba laptops. Lemme know if it helps.

Btw I didn't even know that this site existed:
Linux for Toshiba PCs

Ok, as we're dealing with good old Mandrake 9 here, there should be no need to re-install. There's a Rescue option on the cd to restore the Boot loader (LILO). Try that.

Thanks so much for your help, I've solved the problem and it worked out perfectly.

On a fresh install of Mandrake 9.1 and upon rebooting after install I recieved the famous error of "L 99 99 99 99..." . All I did to remedy the problem was check my hd peramaters in the bois (they were all wrong) and reset them correctly. VIOLA!!!! Now I am up and running fine..... Good Luck

set your first boot device as floppy if you have a windows boot floppy or Cd if you have a bootable cd .. start machine with cdrom support and when the famous A:> sign comes write fdisk/MBR should erase out the linux MBR information and windows is going to come back ....

after that change bios option to CDROM as the first boot device ,

1)place a linux bootable installation CD , run into rescue mode ..
2. mount the root and boot partition of your linux installation on
/mnt/sysconfig or something else
3. chroot to that partition and configure lilo, exit from the shell and
reboot ..

......

Should work , erasing out linux is not a sol , Hope this works,
All the best ...
Shaheen

I was having a similar problem. My the MBR of my hard drive gets currupted if the power fails (i.e. during a thunderstorm). I opted to use the NTLDR (Windows XP/2000/NT boot loader) to boot and the problem has gone away. There is a Linux HOWTO that gives directions on how to do this.

Since I have switched, my LILO has not crashed. Apparently XP deals with power failures better than Linux (LILO).

Bengal571

From: http://knoppix.net/forum/threads/229...-problem/page2

The "lilo 99" problem occurs, wen mbr damaged.
this often happens if you set the main disk to a partition not the device.

so if you set in lilo.conf somthing like boot=/dev/hda6 you'll get this error.
set boot=/dev/hda instead and run lilo again
or run lilo with -M /dev/hda with same effect.

-fgrep

works for me.