Installing dual Boot 98/Linux - WONT 'LILO' Dual Boot !?
 

Hi everyone, I am new to this LinuxQuestions.org community!

I have an Installation issue that I hope someone can help with...

I am attempting to install RedHat Linux 7.2 onto a Compaq Armada Laptop (a DUAL BOOT setup, with Windows 98).

With a fresh empty hard disk, I create an initial 4Gb Partition (FAT32), and install Win98.

Next, install RH Linux...
During the Partition setup stage, I select the remainder of the hard disk (6Gb, empty space) and instruct Linux to create the Linux Partition, with the default directory structure (as per the Linux Setup program).

I then select LILO as the (dual) Boot Loader - the Linux installation completes without issue.

When it comes to booting the machine, I am finding that no LILO Boot Loader gets displayed, and the machine automatically boots into Windoze 98 every time!?

During Linux setup, I have tried the LILO Boot Loader on both the "MBR" and the "First sector of boot partition", but neither configurations will make the machine dual boot (via LILO) on startup?

Any feedback or advice would be greatly appreciated.
Have trawled through similar threads, but still cant seem to get this to work (sorry for the long Post)!

I'm not sure it looks like the MBR is somehow locked. didn't you make a boot disk during installation? try to use it. Why don't you want to use a newer FC4 with GRUB? it might work.

I think the issue with fc4 is the age of the laptop.

Does the redhat install do grub? (i can't remember)
That may be easier to get to dual boot. I remember LILO (old versions) did have issues with IDE hard drives bigger than 2GB

i suggess you check lilo.conf file /etc/lilo.conf
example :
other=/dev/hda1
label=dos
table=/dev/hda

image=/boot/vmlinuz
root=/dev/hda7
label=linux
activate the lilo config : lilo -C /etc/lilo.conf or type "lilo"

Hi, many thanks for your input..

True - the Laptop is an old one - It's the Armada M300.
(with regards to a boot disk - the expansion base didn't come with a Floppy drive!).

Hard disk size is just 12Gb - could well be FC4? Please elaborate what that stands for? (sorry).
I will remove Linux and attempt the instalation using GRUB as the boot loader (instead of LILO), and see if that works.

I'm building this old Laptop first, and plan to manage with Linux as a dedicated solution (bybe bye Windoze)! So if all goes well, will switch my MAIN PC to Linux too ;)

Many thanks for the input - will post a reply soon to let you know how that goes... :ThumbsUp:

dudulz..
As the machine doesn't have a Floppy drive (for a Linux bootable floppy), I cant get to the Linux environment at all, thats installed? Unless there's another way - DOS?? Cheers.

A live CD is all you need to get inside any unbootable Linux. This is described in Task H in "Just booting tips" in my signature.

The methods of how to restore Lilo and Grub are described in Task B using a Live CD in the "Just Booting Tips".

It is my experience many installer could fail to implement the boot loader properly. Whether Lilo or Grub is immaterial. Just paste /etc/lilo.conf or /boot/grub/menu.lst depending on you are using Lilo or Grub respectively.

Give up the content of the partitioning scheme by typing at terminal
The two together will enable us to advise how to amend the boot loader configuration file. I often had to write my own because the failure by the installer.

FC4 - Fedora Core version 4. In a nutshell, Red Hat spun off its open source version into the Fedora Project. See http://fedora.redhat.com/

You can use the 1st install CD to boot rescue mode. The / partition will be mounted at /mnt/sysimage. I can not remember if 7.2 still had the 1024 cylinder limitation.

Your laptop isn't that old. You shouldn't have problems with newer distributions if your laptop memory is a least 256MB or more. FC4 can be on the slow side for slower speed processors since KDE and Gnome tend to take a lot of resources.

Definately an odd situation. As said before try rerunning lilo. Also try booting into linux w/ a boot disk, or the original Redhat CD. When given the options there is usually a way you can specify what kernel you want to use and your root.

I was worried about the age of my laptop too when I first installed linux on my laptop. I have a Toshiba Satellite Pro 4300 (600MHz like yours, 64MB of RAM stock, though I put in another 128 (192MB total)). So, I started w/ Vector linux and the old XFree86, 4.3 and 2.4 sources. It ran OK, but last year I installed Gentoo and couldn't be happier. 2.6.12 sources, and Xorg 6.8.2. X and the video runs MUCH better than w/ 4.3, still very little RAM usage, everything works like it did w/ the older stuff, if not better. My gf has the same install on her laptop and her's is 366MHz! It runs perfectly fine, and there were some issues w/ her video w/ XFree86 4.3 that are gone w/ Xorg. I say just get it, 2.6.12 has all the driver for mine, and your as well I imagine, only they have only been further developed, or at the very least, are where they were w/ the older versions anyways. The only real issue is that w/ 12GB of space, you want to be more careful about what you install, keep out the unnecessary stuff and stick w/ one desktop enviroment (Gnome 2.10 works well w/ mine).

BTW, as far as mine and yours laptops are concerned, their too old to play any new games, and most old games I have run fine w/ Cedega, or native linux versions (like Hexen2 (uHexen), quake, doom (legacy), etc..). Their really is not much reason to keep Windows around, and it will just end up taking up space.

Basically, yes. Although, whether or not you realize it, by using Fedora Core you are participating in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux beta testing program.
I think you need the rescue CD with you as well, however.
It's not really as dependent on memory as it is on clock speed. You can have a more-than-adequate 512 megabytes of RAM and yet still have an unusable Linux installation with less than a 1 gigahertz clock speed.

...so it DID work without issue, using GRUB !
 

..............

My original "Help!" Post was posted approx 24 hours ago, and since then, what a great response!
....what a great group of people too, very much appreciate all the feedback. :thumbsup:

Should have tried this 'option' before posting I suppose - but this evening re-installed Linux, using GRUB as the Boot Loader. As the Installation was completing, saw the "Performing Post configuration" (or similar) then "Installing Boot Loader..." All very promising, which never appeared on previous attempts, selecting LILO!?

The Laptop has been upgraded with 128Mb memory - Processor is 500Mhz (yes 500Mhz - still remember 'Mhz' as apposed to the majority of modern machines running Ghz processors!) :)
Well, this Laptop will serve its purpose, and will do the job - Will Port my primary home PC to Linux soon too! ...Presume there are equivalent Apps available for Linux (ie: MSN/Yahoo Messenger etc etc?).
It's the hardcore gaming that I'll miss - as the major players (game companies) only really cater for the MS platforms. :|

Anyway - so now I have a completed dual boot configuration. :) ...let the fun begin. :D
Have made ALOT of notes already - regarding the very useful advice above - so many thanks all.

IMHO you should set linux partition to active with fdisk, and unset windows partition. Then install lilo on bootable partition. I had similar problem while trying to install lilo on active windows partition.

But Linux never uses the bootable flag like a Windows system does!

I have over 100 Linux systems in the box and have never set even one of them active! They all boot.

Setting an active partition active is an old MS method because MS's MBR has no target to boot. It simply scans from the 4 primary partition in the hard disk and loads the first one with the booting flag marked "active".

In Linux Grub boots the partition stated in the "root" statement and Lilo boots the Linux stated in the "root=" statement. Marking the partition active or not has no consequence.

Also Linux can be booted from logical partitions which none of the MS systems has been designed to occupy. Marking a logical partition active can hardly influence a MS system at all.

Anyway, i have to mark linux partition active if i want to install lilo with `lilo` command