Boot failure on new installation (HD & Floppy)
 

Setup: Old 486 166MHz PM
New 40 Gig Hard Drive

The slackware ISO was too big to burn onto a CD, so I copied the files and dropped gnome.

Boot and root disks work fine, and the install is a dream. However, the PC will not boot from the HD or the boot disk made during the installation. Both floppy and HD boots give a "Boot fail" response. I suspect this is something to to with the way the hard drive is configured.

hda1 = 39 gig, formatted to Linux and flagged as boot, plus a 1 gig swap partition.

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.


[EDIT]

Previous attempts had lilo boot the HD. I've just tried an installation with the boot set to MBR. This gave a new error: L40 40 40 40 40 40... followed by a system reboot, which lead to the L40 40 40 40 40 40 screen and reboot...

I've also had the L404040404 thing. I used a Windows 98 (Yes Windows :D ) bootdisk and gave the command "fdisk /mbr" this resolved the problem. I did some googling on the subject and this was the only method I came across

As for the rest, I don't really understand what's going on, since you did mark you /dev/hda1 as bootable. But you could try re-installing lilo after fixing the MBR with the Windows disk.

I finally have Linux up and running. I went into expert mode in lilo after reinstalling and made a few lucky guesses. :D

:D YAY :D

a few lucky guesses? come on. You should write down what you try, so that when you get the problem solved, you can post it for others (like myself). :) oh well, if you can remember those lucky guesses, i would appreciate it

just to let ya know
 

the slackware is not to big to burn to a cd, you just have to finalize it and it works fine