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I'll try to explain this without too much humiliation...
I installed Debian on our notebook yesterday, and it went fine.
Today I installed it on the second hard drive in our desktop. I'd read that GRUB was better than LILO, so when the installer asked, "Do you want to install LILO?", I said "no," figuring I'd install GRUB later.
Then, when it asked if I wanted to make a boot floppy, I also said "no," because I'd made one when I installed on the notebook.
Now, I can't boot, of course. The partition's "bootable," but there's no boot loader (right?). The floppy causes a kernel panic, because (as I now know) it's configured for a different system.
I can boot from CD and get to a root shell, but what do I do then? Can I install GRUB (or lacking that, LILO) from there? Or make a boot floppy for the new install? Or must I start all over?
Thanks for your help. (I know we'll all laugh about this someday---that is, I'll laugh too, not just you.)
knoppix@ttyp0[knoppix]$ sudo lilo -b /dev/hdb
/etc/lilo.conf: Permission denied
knoppix@ttyp0[knoppix]$ sudo lilo -b /dev/hdb
Unrecognized token "! Please edit /etc/lilo.conf before running lilo!" at or above line 20 in file '/etc/lilo.conf'
And if I do manage to install LILO on my Linux h/d's MBR, how do I run LILO without a boot floppy?
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