lilo L 99 99... error

sambartle · 10-11-2003, 06:21 AM

Hi,

I just reinstalled Linux (Slackware 9.0) on my PC and now i get the L 99 99... error when i try to choose to boot.

My system is set up like this:

on CMD-649U IDE Card:
/dev/hda (empty)
/dev/hdb (empty)
/dev/hda (IOMEGA ZIP100)
/dev/hdb (empty)

on CMD-649U RAID CARD (IDE MODE):
/dev/hde (LiteOn 52x CDRW)
/dev/hdf (empty)
/dev/hdg (IBM 80GB HDD)
/dev/hdh (empty)

on onboard ATA controller:
/dev/hdi (IBM 120GB)
/dev/hdj (empty)
/dev/hdk (Pioneer DVR105 DVD-RW)
/dev/hdl (Liteon 24x CDRW)

Linux is installed on the 80GB HDD (/dev/hdg) on the second partition (/dev/hdg2), theres a ntfs partition (/dev/hdg1) and linux swap (/dev/hdg3)

Windows 2000 is installed on the 120GB HDD (/dev/hdi) and is the Primary master (windows sees this before the addin cards, linux works the other way it seems)

As a bootloader i use boot.ini to choose between and a bootsect.lnx image from my root partition where lilo is installed.
(dd if=/dev/hdg2 of=/bootsect.lnx bs=512 count=1 used to create the file)

I have my lilo information as:
boot = /dev/hdg2
and the linux root /dev/hdg2 so i think this is correct

No matter what i try it will not go past the L 99 99 error..

Any help would be very very welcome right now, as i just want to format every drive and start again..

Thanks,

Sam

motub · 10-11-2003, 07:04 AM

From man LiLO (8):

Quote:

BOOT ERRORS
The boot process takes place in two stages. The first stage loader is
a single sector, and is loaded by the BIOS or by the loader in the MBR.
It loads the multi-sector second stage loader, but is very space lim-
ited. When the first stage loader gets control, it types the letter
"L"; when it is ready to transfer control to the second stage loader it
types the letter "I". If any error occurs, like a disk read error, it
will put out a hexadecimil error code, and then it will re-try the
operation. All hex error codes are BIOS return values, except for the
lilo-generated 40, 99 and 9A. A partial list of error codes follows:

00 no error
01 invalid disk command
0A bad sector flag
0B bad track flag
20 controller failure
40 seek failure (BIOS)
40 cylinder>1023 (LILO)
99 invalid second stage index sector (LILO)
9A no second stage loader signature (LILO)
AA drive not ready
FF sense operation failed

Error code 40 is generated by the BIOS, or by LILO during the conver-
sion of a linear (24-bit) disk address to a geometric (C:H:S) address.
On older systems which do not support lba32 (32-bit) addressing, this
error may also be generated. Errors 99 and 9A usually mean the map
file (-m or map=) is not readable, likely because LILO was not re-run
after some system change, or there is a geometry mis-match between what
LILO used (lilo -v3 to display) and what is actually being used by the
BIOS one of the lilo diagnostic disks, available in the source distri-
bution, may be needed to diagnose this problem).

What I suspect this means is that LiLO is 1. not properly installed and/or 2) not properly configured for running from a RAID disk.

I found a sample LiLO RAID configuration file that might help you.

I don't have RAID, but this was the result of a fast Google search. As well as Google, you might also want to search the forums for other ideas; I'm pretty sure that this isn't the first time this issue has come up for people.

Good luck.

sambartle · 10-11-2003, 07:32 AM

motub, Thanks for the reply, however i have read this before (along with a similar post) the difference being that im definitly not using the RAID elements of the card (its set by jumper to just be a standard IDE card)

This setup has worked fine in the past and the only change i have made is that i now have an extra 120GB hard drive in my setup.

I reinstalled slackware as i plan to use a largly different system and thought this would be quicker. Im regretting this now as it was working fine before.

I have since posting attempted a reinstall of lilo, and also reconfigured the lilo.conf which i am certain is correct.

I may try a newer version of lilo and see if that helps as i remember that RC2 or slack 9 has a very broken version of lilo included.

Hmmmm,

Im gonna have to think about this one.

s