lilo won't boot windows.

dustfinger · 09-09-2004, 08:35 PM

I know there are lots of posts like this all over the web. I know because I have been reading them for many days now. The closest I have found to exactally my problem is at this URL. Assome spaces to be dots. This is my first post so I can't post URLs however I think I should be allowed to post links to other threads in this forum

www linuxquestions org/questions/showthread php?s=&threadid=223533&highlight=lilo+windows+wont+boot

However their solution did not work for me.

Here are my partitions:

Quote:

Disk /dev/hdc: 58140 cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sectors/track
Warning: extended partition does not start at a cylinder boundary.
DOS and Linux will interpret the contents differently.
Warning: The partition table looks like it was made
for C/H/S=*/255/63 (instead of 58140/16/63).
For this listing I'll assume that geometry.
Units = cylinders of 8225280 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0

Device Boot Start End #cyls #blocks Id System
/dev/hdc1 * 0+ 8 9- 72261 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hdc2 9 133 125 1004062+ 82 Linux swap
/dev/hdc3 134 3517 3384 27181980 83 Linux
/dev/hdc4 3518 3647 130 1044225 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)

Here is my fstab:

Quote:

/dev/hdc1 /boot HPFS/NTFS noauto,noatime 1 2
/dev/hdc3 / ext3 noatime 0 1
/dev/hdc2 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/cdroms/cdrom0 /mnt/cdrom iso9660 noauto,ro 0 0
# NOTE: The next line is critical for boot!
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
# glibc 2.2 and above expects tmpfs to be mounted at /dev/shm for
# POSIX shared memory (shm_open, shm_unlink).
# (tmpfs is a dynamically expandable/shrinkable ramdisk, and will
# use almost no memory if not populated with files)
# Adding the following line to /etc/fstab should take care of this:
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0

Here is my lilo.conf file as it stands right now.

Code:

boot=/dev/hdc                           #Install LILO in the MBR
#map=/boot/map
#install=/boot/boot.1600
prompt                                  #Give the user the chance to select another section
timeout=50                              #Wait 5 (five) seconds before booting the default section
default=gentoo                          #When the timeout has passed, boot the "gentoo" section
vga=788                                 #Frame buffer

image=/boot/kernel-2.6.7-gentoo-r9
        label=gentoo
        read-only
        root=/dev/hdc3

other=/dev/hdc4
        #boot-as = 0x80
        label=windows
        #table=/dev/hdc
        map-drive=0x80 to=0x81
        map-drive=0x81 to=0x80

Before I installed gentoo I had been running Fedora Core 1 and at that time I could boot into windows. I have not touched my windows partition since then and I have nuked the Fedora partition and formated and installed gentoo. Now lilo will not load windows. It just hangs after saying "Loading Windows".

Note: I tried to install grub to see if that would work better, but when I emerged grub the emerge was not completed since my boot partition was not mounted. When I tried to mount the boot partition...

Quote:

root # mount /boot
mount: fs type HPFS/NTFS not supported by kernel

So I probably just have to add an option to my kernel config to make my boot directory mountable, however I don't see that being the cause of my windows booting problem with lilo. Any suggestions?

dustfinger.

CroMagnon · 09-09-2004, 10:19 PM

Why is your boot partition show HPFS/NTFS as it's partition type? Run fdisk /dev/hdc, then use t for type and change it to 83, then w to save the changes.

Then try to mount your boot partition the long way, i.e:
mount -t ext3 /dev/hdc1 /boot
keep changing the 'ext3' part to different filesystems until it succeeds, and then replace the HPFS/NTFS line in your fstab with the right filesystem. This may help get grub installed, and your problem might be solved.

Demonbane · 09-09-2004, 10:40 PM

Do you only have single drive on your system?

dustfinger · 09-10-2004, 12:48 AM

CroMagnon,

Currently I am running a full system update and then going to bed for the night. I will take your advice and try changing the fs on boot tomorrow. When I change the fs should I back up my boot dir? I am going to just to be on the safe side.

Demonbane,

I only have one drive and it is /dev/hdc.

Good night and thank you for anyone that can help. I notice that when I checked to see what needed to be updated on my system lilo was among the list. Perhaps the update will solve the problem?

dustfinger.

CroMagnon · 09-10-2004, 01:01 AM

I thought you couldn't mount your boot partition? Do you have a boot partition and files in /boot on your root partition?

Backing up is always wise, but I don't know how you're going to do a backup if you can't get to the files...

dustfinger · 09-10-2004, 01:09 AM

CroMagnon,

Haah... Still have not gone to sleep. I had better soon though.

Quote:

I thought you couldn't mount your boot partition?

When I emerge grub it tells me that it cannot mount the boot partition and so the emerge fails. It says that it has important files that it needs to write into that partition. I can access those files. So it does seem that I am mounted. Strangely when I try to mount /boot it says that the kernel cannot read the fs. I would have expected it to say something like "Already mounted boot". So the whole thing is very odd.

Okay. I am sickly tired now so I will post back again tomorrow. Goodnight!

CroMagnon · 09-10-2004, 01:32 AM

OK, stop checking your mail and sleep!

Before you go changing that partition, can you paste the output of 'mount'? It may be that you didn't set up a separate boot partition, which would mean the /boot line in fstab doesn't belong there at all. The output from mount will clear this up.

Electro · 09-10-2004, 05:21 AM

Change /dev/hdc4 to /dev/hdc1 in your lilo config. Gentoo installer probably got confused from your FAT32 and NTFS partitions, so it used the windows partition that it knows best, FAT32.

Mount NTFS as readonly to be on the safe side. NTFS is still experimental when comes to writing to it athough they should have fix it by now.

I would not change the partition type or you can screw up you Windows partition.

egag · 09-10-2004, 07:11 AM

hoi,

first of all this is strange: /dev/hdc1 * 0+ 8 9- 72261 7 HPFS/NTFS ? . This partition is in your fstab as the /boot part,
but being NTFS, how did you manage to install a linux kernel etc. on it ?

second strange thing : windows should be in /dev/hdc4 ,acc. to lilo.conf.but :
" /dev/hdc4 3518 3647 130 1044225 f W95 Ext'd (LBA) " tells this is an extended part. and there are no
logical stations listed ( shoud be /hdc5 and evt. more ) , so where is windows located ?
( if it is on a logical station, lilo.conf should read /dev/hdc5 )

Furthermore i read that windows generally is not happy, running from an logical station.

egag

dustfinger · 09-10-2004, 06:31 PM

CroMagnon,

Here is the output from mount.

Code:

bash-2.05b# mount
/dev/hdc3 on / type ext3 (rw,noatime)
none on /dev type devfs (rw)
none on /proc type proc (rw)
none on /sys type sysfs (rw)
none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw)
none on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
none on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw)

Thank you for replying Electro and egag. I am actually late for a family dinner that I forgot about - Oops! So I had better go, but when I return I will consider your replies. Be back much later tonight.

dustfinger.

CroMagnon · 09-11-2004, 03:35 AM

I think electro has explained what happened - the installer screwed up figuring our which partition was which. Damned if I know how that /boot line got in your fstab though - comment it out and try the grub install - you don't have a separate /boot partition, so with nothing to confuse it in the fstab, it should install. Grub is a much better bootloader anyway, so try that out. If you need to know which partition windows boots from, it's likely hdc1.

Don't change the type of the first partition. Although it won't damage the partition if you have, it's unlikely to work properly until you change it back.

dustfinger · 09-11-2004, 04:53 PM

Electro,

I changed my lilo.conf to:

Snippet.

Code:

other=/dev/hdc1
        label=windows
        read-only
        table=/dev/hdc

I commented out /boot from /etc/fstab

When I run /sbin/lilo:

Quote:

root # /sbin/lilo
Warning: COMPACT may conflict with LBA32 on some systems
Added gentoo *
Fatal: First sector of /dev/hdc1 doesn't have a valid boot signature

The only one that seems to satisfy lilo is /dev/hdc4

dustfinger.

CroMagnon · 09-11-2004, 07:46 PM

Did you try removing the /boot line in fstab and emerging grub again? If you can get grub installed, you can use the grub prompt to try booting the windows system until you find one that works.

If it were me, though, I'd find another hard drive, back up all my data, wipe that disk clean, and start from scratch - the paritioning looks quite bizarre, and is probably the cause of most of your problems. If you do decide to do that, be sure to install windows first.

dustfinger · 09-11-2004, 11:20 PM

CroMagnon,

I am doing that now. Should /proc/mounts and /etc/mtab be the same? I have...

Code:

root # cat /proc/mounts 
rootfs / rootfs rw 0 0
/dev/root / ext3 rw,noatime 0 0
none /dev devfs rw 0 0
none /proc proc rw,nodiratime 0 0
none /sys sysfs rw 0 0
none /dev/pts devpts rw 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs rw 0 0
none /proc/bus/usb usbfs rw 0 0

root # cat /etc/mtab
/dev/hdc3 / ext3 rw,noatime 0 0
none /dev devfs rw 0 0
none /proc proc rw 0 0
none /sys sysfs rw 0 0
none /dev/pts devpts rw 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs rw 0 0
none /proc/bus/usb usbfs rw 0 0

dustfinger.

dustfinger · 09-12-2004, 12:12 AM

Okay I left my /proc/mounts and /etc/mtab as they are and I configured my /boot/grub/grub.conf file. I then installed grub. I did not remove lilo. grub installed with no errors so I rebooted the system. All I saw was a cursor flashing at the top of a screen so I hit enter. Then I had some sort of boot error message, however I could not read it because my text was rendered in strips . For instance the letter F would be in two or three virtical slices. Basically everything was very hard to read. I hit another key, I think the enter key, and I was at the grub boot menu I could tell. STill all the text was rendered in strips. I tried booting up in grub and I got the same error. booting windows also gave me an error. Now I want to get lilo back. So I stuck in my gentoo live cd and chrooted into the environment. When I type /sbin/lilo

Quote:

Warning: COMPACT may conflict with LBA32 on some systems.
Warning: '/proc/partitions' does not match '/dev' directory structure.
Name change: '/dev/ide/host0/but1/target0/lun0/disc'-> '/dev/hdc'
The kernel was compiled with DEVFS_FS, but 'devfs=mount' was omitted as a kernel command-line boot parameter; hence, the '/dev' directory structure does not reflect DEVFS_FS device names.

Here is my grub.conf

Code:

default 0
timeout 30
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
tite=Gentoo Linux 2.6.7-r9
root = (hd0,0)
kernel /kernel-2.6.7-gentoo-r9 root=/dev/hdc3 vga=788

title=Windows
rootnoverify (hd0,5)
makeactive
chainloader +1

GREAT I see one mistake. rootnoverify (hd0,5). Should probably be rootnoverify (hd0,3) since windows is on /dev/hdc4 correct?

I came down with a very bad throat infection so I am going to hit the hay early tonight. To be on the safe side I am just going to leave my system sitting where it is, still chrooted from the livecd. Perhaps all I need to do is remove grub, but I am feeling to lousy to try something like that tonight.

Thanks again to everyone who have donated their time for my aid. I do appreciate it and tomorrow when I get up I will do some research on this before I go messing around some more.

dustfinger.