Slackware bootdisk/LILO problem
 

I have been trying to install slackware on my Compaq Deskpro2000 with a Maxtor drive. I boot from the cd (7.0 from a book) and it boots just fine. Created the partitions with fdisk inside of Linux no problem. At the end when it tries to create the boot disk or LILO disk/mbr update it fails. I CAN create a normal boot disk but when I try and boot from that disk it sort of hangs. (it shows four numbers on the screen...then four more...then four more and so on...never stopping) You can hear the floppy "chunking" each time.
When I try and install LILO it fails and says to try and create it manually. It does not give a reason or any error code. Just cannot create LILO on floppy or MBR or root. I have created the boot disks using the rawrite utility and can boot from them no problem. I can boot from the cd no problem. But I cannot boot my machine without either of those two pieces. Currently when I boot from the hard drive it shows LI and then halts.
I know this is tough to figure out remotely but any ideas? I have been at it now for 3 nights and I am not sure where to turn next. Any clubs in Southern California? Maybe I can find a local guru who could help?!
I did get RedHat successfully loaded on this machine before but would like to use something a bit more generic. Slackware seems to get great reviews.

Thanks in advance,
Brian

See this thread for a short decription of the "LI" error.
Some quick thoughts:

How is your drive partitioned? Is there any other OS on the system?
Compaq drives have a special hidden diagnostic partition on them; perhaps that's conflicting with lilo's install to the MBR.
Boot the system with a floppy, configure /etc/lilo.conf properly, and run /sbin/lilo to install it manually.

Cylinders
 

I just stumbled onto something. I am using a drive with 16383 cylinders. I just got a message when I ran lilo that said 7023>1023 or something to that effect. Should I make the root partition first to make sure it is below cylinder 1023? I created the boot partition and swap partitions first. Is it the boot partition that needs to be below 1023? Do I need to buy a new hard drive? As you can tell I am a bit confused about this.

Thanks again!
Brian
ps. I am so close....hopefully I can get it tonight!

Oh, right. I think Slack 7 uses an older lilo with the 1024 cylinder limitation. It's the /boot partition (which contains the kernel image) that needs to go below 1024. The other partitions can go anywhere.

Lilo versions 21-3 and above don't suffer from the size problem at all.

Thanks a bunch
 

Atleast I am on the right track again. I downloaded 8.0 but don't know how to install that way yet. Thought it would be easier to get a disk and go from there...maybe I was wrong about that.

Thanks for your help!

Sort of figured it out
 

I got Slack 7 running finally. I made the root partition completely below 1024 and it is now running and LILO installed and runs fine. I still don't know how to just make the boot partition below 1024 but I'm sure I can figure that part out. Anyway, the problem was definitely related to the 1024 limitation of LILO. Hope this helps someone else down the road.:)

Slack 8 has a newer version of lilo that dosn't suffer from the 1024 problem.