lilo wont install plus other issues
 

this is'nt a usual "wont install" thread. my brother put together a computer. he also tried to install linux on his own. dont know why but he made the 80gb drive i gave him the slave, and a 7gb drive the primary. the 7 is corrupt and just a pain, wont hold linux or windows.
cylinders where 9928. i used a rescure to try to fix them. now windows runs better.

7gb is hda
80gb is hdd <----dont ask because i dont know
if i disconnect the 7gb nothing will boot.

went to install linux on the 80 to make a dual boot.i noticed he mounted windows(/mnt/windows) after playing i got the mandriva install to mount and package installation. install went fine but lilo wont install. got an error 0x80 in use and it also listed another hex value(i am assuming for the other HD).

i am not at his house so i cant run any commands from cli (using livecd). after some searching i have some ideas #lilo -v -b /dev/hda or hdd.
would a bootable lilo work? i saw someplace how to make one on a cd.
does anyone have any ideas on how else i can install lilo?
bios has the 80 as the first boot ,after cd-rom.
just a kick in the right direction will do :)

It is quite common that Lilo could hit a problem and fail to boot the distro.

I would say in over 50% of the installation I have to intervene myself by correcting the /etc/lilo.conf. In many case the installer abandoned a partly completed /etc/lilo.conf!

Therefore I would just try to amend the /etc/lilo.conf in your case.

Post your /etc/lilo.conf here together with the content of
if you get stuck.

Your 80Gb hard disk was given the hdd name because it was attached to the slave position of your secondary IDE cable. It will be named by Linux as hdc if it were placed as a master of the secondard IDE cable. If it were connected in the same cable as your 7Gb disk and as a slave it would have been called hdb.

alright, i can do that. i wont be able to work on it till tomarrow but i will post the results if i get stuck.

thanks for the post saikee. i hear your the guru when it comes to these things :)

if all goes well i will also post what steps i took to solve the problem (as if there are'nt enough of these threads)