Installs, but will not boot

Havok · 02-14-2002, 12:27 PM

Im am just a stupid windoze user .. but I want to get into Linux, so I bought Mandrake 8.1 ... I installed it, and everything worked ... I set up a user and made a root password ... then it told me to remove the boot media and restart .. so i did ... and after the mem check nothing .. the bios asks for the boot disc ... HELP please

taz.devil · 02-14-2002, 01:01 PM

Sounds like LILO or GRUB didn't get installed when you installed everything else. They are two different boot loaders. You need one or the other (or a second party one like Boot Magic) in order to boot Linux. For all of the trouble it was to install, you can try to install just the boot loader by booting off of the bootdisk that it had you create OR as I usually do, just reinstall making sure I get my mistake corrected. I hate the mess and am too neurotic to not do everything full-on or not at all! LOL

acid_kewpie · 02-14-2002, 01:13 PM

i'd hazard a guess that you set lilo to install in the partition and not the MBR? if there's nothing useful in the MBR then the bios would fall through, and ask for a disk.... if you can get into the system using rescue mode on the cd's, then you could change boot=/dev/hda(some number) to just boot=/dev/hda in lilo.conf but then if you've not got into it yet, i'd just reinstall IF i guessed right...