linux won't boot whitout boot disk
 

I've just installed linux slackware on a primary Matser drive everything seemed to have gone well during set up.

But when it was time to reboot and let linux boot nothing happened it just asked me to press a key to reboot as if there was no bootable partition. But when the boot disk is in drive a: it boots. I"ve installed LILO so normally Linux is supposed to be able to boot by it's self, right? I have 2 primary partions that I created using fdisk, the 16Mo extention and the file system(/dev/hda2) respectivly primary partitions 1 and 2 (no Dos partition). So I went back into set up ancd checked my LILO configuration and this is what I found wich seems ok to me:

#LILO
#...
#...
boot = /dev/hda2
message = boot/boot.message.txt
prompt
timeout = 1200
cga=normal
#..
#..
image = vmlinuz
root = /dev/hdaz
label=linux
read-only

Could someone plz tell me what I did wrong, thank you

Hi grizz

Taken at face value - this won't work.

Firstly - there isnt a directory specified in the line

image=vmlinuz

This directive simply tells the map installer /sbin/lilo the path to the kernel image - the problem here is that theres no path.

It should say

image=/boot/vmlinuz


Second - the root patition is not specified correctly

It should say

root=/dev/hda2

.
This directive tells the map installer were to re-install LILO to - youve set it to install to the boot sector of the Root partition - if I remember correctly you can use fdisk to flag the partition as bootable - see the fdisk options - I cant remeber which it is.

Other than this - just set it to

boot=/dev/hda

this will instruct the map instaler to re-install LILO to the MBR

If you decide to make this change (along with the other changes) - then go to a command line and as Root user - type

/sbin/lilo

You must do this for the changes you make to have any effect.

Thank you all I had to do was reinstalle LILO on the Master boot record, I had done it on the superblock, it boots up good now. But now I want to have my computer dual boot I have 2 hardrives one a 10G hardrive with windows 2000 and the other will be my 1G linux drive.

When I first got the pc I partitioned that hard drive into an 18G and a 2G partitions using bootMagic but then I deleted the programme now every time I boot the pc tells it cant find the boot magic program but all I havve to do is press any key and windows boots.

I was told that all I have to do is put my windows drive as the primary master and my linux drive as a slave and windows boot manager would give me the choice to boot into windows or linux, but it only boots into windows, could it be my problem with boot magic?