bootloader
 

hi! I'm having trouble booting into linux. I reinstalled it a while ago but I placed the new lilo bootloader in my linux partition. The old bootloader( i think) resides in my windows partition. Now, everytime I start my computer, I get the old bootloader. If I choose linux, it doesn't even go to the init part. The only thing I see is:

Finding linux.......(black screen)

And it doesn't advance any further. how do i fix this? can I just delete the lilo in my windows so it could find the one in my linux partition? Or am I risking not being able to boot even to my windows partition?

Also, do you know where I could locate lilo in my windows?

PS:
The mandrake I reinstalled is also in the same partition as the old one. I removed the old one. It is in /dev/hda5.

thanks!

I've been using grub for a while so I con't remember the details of lilo but don't delete your lilo !! you prolly won't be able to boot afterwards!

A few things might be wrong here. Have you added/removed or re-arranged your Hard Disks? this will confuse lilo because it won't find a moved disk so you'll have to manually edit the lilo config file to reflect that (/etc/lilo?).

Another thing to try is altering your BIOS setting to boot from the HDD with the new lilo bootloader on.

A combination of the above 2 might be the problem.

Hope this is a pointer as to what may be going wrong. Sorry I can't be more help as it's really a while since I used lilo - and never fully understood it myself ;)

thanks for replying!

I can't edit the lilo config if it is in the /etc/lilo. I can't even boot into linux.

I only have one HDD. So, I think I can't fix this through BIOS.

Maybe I should remove linux entirely first, then install it agian. How do you remove linux? How do you remove lilo? Do I just delete the partition using fdisk?

If you're serious about re-installing Linux:

Boot from the Windows CD and drop to the recovery console. Log onto the windows installation and type the following:

FIXBOOT
FIXMBR

Then restart your machine, boot from your linux CD and start a re-install, select the 'remove all Linux partitions' option and you should be good to go :-)

Well if you can boot from CD-ROM you might wanna try knoppix? Boot into knoppix, fix the /etc/lilo... Or else there must be a floppy linux distro you can try

http://www.linuxlinks.com/Distributions/Floppy/