I am having some trouble setting up a dual boot with Win XP and Slackware 13.1. Lilo lists both Linux and Windows, but when I select Windows, all I get is a black screen. I have two hard drives, sda1 and sdb1. I first installed Windows on sdb1 (it is a smaller, older drive). I then installed Slackware on sda1 and selected to install Lilo on the MBR. I'm guessing that by doing this, I wrote over the Windows information that was already there. Could this be my problem? I feel like this should be an easy fix, but I just don't know where to start in order to fix it.

If it helps, here is the end of my lilo.conf file.

# Windows bootable partition config begins
other = /dev/sdb1
label = Windows
table = /dev/sdb
# Windows bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/sda1
label = Linux
read-only
# Linux bootable partition config ends

Thanks to those that respond in advance.

Yes, part of it at least. This usually happens in the reverse, installing windows automatically overwrites the mbr without asking or notifying the user. At least you were notified. Another part of the problem is that windows is not on the first drive so it needs to be mapped. I haven't used Lilo for years so don't know how to do this. You could try searching "boot windows from second drive with lilo" or something similar.

I tried mapping the drives, and now I get an error

NTLDR missing... press ctrl alt delete to restart

I guess that is at least a step in some direction, because before I just got a black screen.

Could I fix the MBR using the Windows CD and then re-install Lilo (or maybe Grub) somewhere else? Or, if I fixed the MBR, would I have to re-install Lilo?

Probably just a matter of getting the correct partition. Sounds like you picked the recovery partition. Try /dev/sdb2 before messing with other installs.

Does lilo have os-prober,?
If so "sudo os-prober"
then whatever update you would do with lilo.

Does lilo have os-prober,?
If so "sudo os-prober"
then whatever update you would do with lilo.

What happens when you boot to the other drive,I mean you have two sda1 and sdb1...using the F number at first boot select the drive to boot from,on my N01 box I use F11 on my N02 box I use F8,if you have,nt got an F number you can change the boot order in the BIOS.

While you are working on the problem you can discover other ways to boot an OS...for example Smart Boot manager on the UBCD will boot your windoze and from the 13.1 DVD you can use pkgtool and create a boot stick for Slack.

There are several ways to do most things... ! I wish I knew more of them. LOL

can you send the output of these commands:

cat /etc/fstab

dmesg | grep sda

dmesg | grep sdb

I'm familiar with Slackware, I hope can I help you.

I do have the right partition. I tried changing /dev/sdb1 to /dev/sdb2 in lilo.conf and when I ran lilo I got a fatal error about not being able to load /dev/sb2.

fdisk -l gives...

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 38305 307684881 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 38306 38913 4883760 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 38306 38913 4883728+ 82 Linux swap

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 30400 244187968+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

If I just reinstalled everything, and put Windows on the first drive and Slack on the second, could that fix my problem? I would physically switch the drives first, because I want the Slack drive to be the bigger drive. I don't want to do this though, because it would take a good part of my day.

bash-4.1# cat /etc/fstab
/dev/sda5 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/sda1 / ext4 defaults 1 1
#/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom auto noauto,owner,ro 0 0
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,owner 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0

bash-4.1# dmesg | grep sda
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 625140335 512-byte logical blocks: (320 GB/298 GiB)
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
sda:
sda1 sda2 <
sda5
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk
EXT3-fs (sda1): error: couldn't mount because of unsupported optional features (240)
EXT2-fs (sda1): error: couldn't mount because of unsupported optional features (240)
EXT4-fs (sda1): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode
Adding 4883720k swap on /dev/sda5. Priority:-1 extents:1 across:4883720k

bash-4.1# dmesg | grep sdb
sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] 488395055 512-byte logical blocks: (250 GB/232 GiB)
sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
sdb:
sdb1
sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk

Well, do you have a Windows installer CD?

After mapping you said that NTLDR is missing..

These steps usually works for me:

-If you have one, try to boot from windows CD,
-select repair mode,
-change direcory (cd) to CD ROM drive
-and then copy the NTLDR, maybe in i386 directory. cp NTLDR c:

and then exit and reboot

Try this

change

other = /dev/sdb1

to

other = chainloader (hd1,0)+1

Yes.. you should try this first..

I changed other = /dev/sdb1 to other = chainloader (hd1,0)+1 and ran /sbin/lilo -v and got

Fatal: open chainloader(hd1,0)+1: No such file or directory

What about

rootnoverify (hd1,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1