I had Mandrake 9.1 installed on one hard disk (D: under Win XP) and Win XP on the other hard disk (C. I could boot both with LILO without any problems.

Today I decided to try out Mdk 9.2 and installed it on another partition on the same drive as Mdk 9.1. 9.1 is on partiontion hdb2 with XFS as the filesystem and 9.2 on partition hdb3 with reiserfs as the file system.

When I boot the system and choose Win XP or Mdk 9.2, I can boot fine, but when I select Mdk 9.1 to boot, I get a kernel panic display with messages like trying mount reiserfs but not found. Apparently it is trying to mount reiserfs but the installed filesystem is XFS.

Before I installed 9.2 I could boot 9.1 without any problems. Is there any parameter that I can specify in lilo.conf that can fix the problem with booting 9.1? Specifically, how can I make lilo boot 9.1 with XFS instead of reiserfs? Why is it trying to look for reiserfs in the first place, when the partition contains XFS?

there's probably something wrong with lilo.conf. Could you post the lilo.conf in the mdk9.2 installation AND the lilo.conf in the mdk9.1 installation?

Below is the lilo.conf for Mdk 9.1

boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
default="linux"
keytable=/boot/us.klt
prompt
nowarn
timeout=100
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux"
root=/dev/hdb2
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="devfs=mount hdd=ide-scsi acpi=off quiet"
vga=788
read-only
other=/dev/hda2
label="windows"
table=/dev/hda
other=/dev/fd0
label="floppy"
unsafe

Below is the lilo.conf for mdk 9.2

boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
vga=normal
default="linux"
keytable=/boot/us.klt
prompt
nowarn
timeout=100
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.22-6mdk
label="Mdk9.2"
root=/dev/hdb3
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="devfs=mount hdd=ide-scsi acpi=ht splash=silent"
vga=788
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="Mdk9.1"
root=/dev/hdb2
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="devfs=mount hdd=ide-scsi acpi=off quiet"
read-only
other=/dev/hda2
label="windows"
table=/dev/hda
other=/dev/fd0
label="floppy"
unsafe

you've just encountered the "feature" that made me open a bug on bugzilla (http://qa.mandrakesoft.com/show_bug.cgi?id=4852 ) : MdK9.2 DrakBoot dual boot is not Linux Friendly...

In fact, you are using the same init.rd for both MdK9.2 and MdK9.1... which may cause problems.
I ended up copying /boot (for MdK 9.1) content in /boot (for MdK 9.2) renaming files before.
And then I would launch drakboot to take into account everything there is in /boot. I was in ext3 though...

Maybe it will work for you. Important files are vmlinuz*, initrd*

In mdk9.2 you have for 9.1:

image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="Mdk9.1"
root=/dev/hdb2
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="devfs=mount hdd=ide-scsi acpi=off quiet"
read-only

the lines for image and initrd is wrong. That uses the stuff for 9.2. In mdk9.2, create a new mountpoint /mdk91 say, and mount /dev/hdb2 to it:
mount /dev/hdb2 /mdk91

then make the following changes for fstab:

image=/mdk91/boot/vmlinuz
label="Mdk9.1"
root=/dev/hdb2
initrd=/mdk91/boot/initrd.img
append="devfs=mount hdd=ide-scsi acpi=off quiet"
read-only

notice the change for image and initrd. Then run lilo again. You should be all set. Remeber that all of this is done from inside 9.2 and the the changes are to be made to /etc/fstab of 9.2.

Thanks, quatsch for your suggestion. I implemented it and it works!. This is what I did (for Mdk 9.2 from within Mdk 9.1, as I had restored the original boot loader using the boot CD for Mdk 9.1 after I had the problem booting Mdk 9.1. I needed 9.1 as I had my programs and files on it)

1. Opened Mandrake Control Center and created a mount point, /mdk92, for partition hdb3, the one I could not boot. When I saved it, Mandrake Control Center asked if I wanted to create an entry in /etc/fstab and I clicked yes. I did not have to manually create an entry in /etc/fstab.

2. Opened a terminal and created an entry for Mdk 9.2 in /etc/lilo.conf as follows.

image=/mdk92/boot/vmlinz-2.24.22-6mdk
label="Mdk9.2"
root=/dev/hdb3
initrd=/mdk2/boot/initrd.img
append="devfs=mount hdd=ide-sci acpi=ht splash=silent"
read-only

Saved /etc/lilo.conf

3. mounted mdk92 as follows
mount /dev/hdb3 /mdk92.

4. Ran /sbin/lilo.

Rebooted and and selected Mdk91 or Mdk91 and either could boot properly.

wow, that's far more simple than my method...
I was certainly upset when I found mine, otherwise I would have chosen yours quatsch !!!
I'm updating my bug to refer to this thread...

This wasn't necessary. You only need the other distro mounted when you run lilo so no need to edit fstab. You can just mount it by 'mount /dev/hdb3 /mdk92' w/o any entries in the fstab. Also, if you do edit fstab, you should specify the noauto option so it does not get mounted automatically at boot time - wanna minimize the possiblity of messing with another distro on the machine.