The 2 OS' were working fine together until...

After playing with my windows partitions, the lilo wasn't appearing on startup and the root had changed from /dev/hda10 to /dev/hda8.

Tried booting off the CD and running /sbin/lilo, but I was on fd2 as my root partition. Tried passing the parameters
bare.i root="/dev/hda8"
to the kernel again booting from the CD, but still on fd2 for some reason.

I tried mounting /dev/hda8 and running /sbin/lilo, but still wouldn't work.

What am I doing wrong?

Is my linux partitions moving around gonna be a regular occurence unless I give them a number nearer the bottom where the partitions don't get moved around much?

The numbers change?

Oh. I re-read it.

Boot up to a rescue CD.

Your / should be mounted for you in /mnt/sysimage (That is for redhat, read your docs on which ever rescue CD you have. You may have to manually mount your / to a directory. The directory you mount it to is up to you, but you may want to: mkdir /mnt/sysimage. Then: mount /dev/hdXx /mnt/sysimage.)

cp /mnt/sysimage/etc/sbin/lilo /sbin/lilo

Edit your /mnt/sysimage/etc/lilo.conf so that every entry is correct. (vi) is available in linux rescue.

mount --bind /mnt/sysimage/etc /etc (READ THE MAN_PAGE ON MOUNT, I'm doing this from memory.)

/sbin/lilo

Done.

Note: If you are unfamiliar with anything use man-pages; there are man-pages online as well. The spaces aren't really clear on this text.

I tried doing this with the slackware install CD and got this error while running the last command (/sbin/lilo):

Fatal:creat /boot/map~: No such file or directory.

I saw (mounted root)/boot/map without the tilde key, would it be safe copying this over?

I also take it you meant to put /sbin/lilo the places you put /etc/sbin/lilo am I right?

Also am I using the right kind of CD (the regular slackware install CD). Please note I have no floppy drive.

Would it be a bad idea to run fdisk and make slackware the boot partition? At the moment my Windows is. I figured I could make it my boot, boot into it and run /sbin/lilo possibly to the MBR, then make Windows my boot partition. But will this cause me to not be able to boot from my Windows partition if something goes wrong?

Err. . .yes. Sorry.

NO. Don't flag the /boot as bootable, that would leave XP unable to boot.

Then mount /dev/hdXz (your boot partition) to /boot

and try again.

HEY, WAIT A MINUTE.

Did you say you weren't installing Lilo to hda1/MBR?

Or is it you don't know about boot managers?

If you don't install a boot manager to the MBR in the first IDE disk you can't natively boot linux.

As far as fixing or restoring the MBR (master boot record) for XP if it gets hosed up. That is easy. Just insert the XP CD into the CD-rom and boot it up on the repair option. Start Recovery Console. Type the command fixmbr or if that doesn't work FIXMBR. (I can't remember whether case makes a difference.)


The alternative is to do searches for using the windows chainloader to load linux.

If you chose to install Lilo to the root partition, either boot from the floppy, or boot the cd with the following option (at the boot: screen)...

bare.i root=/dev/hdax noinitrd ro

hdax will be your /root partition (hda8?)

It will look like this...

boot:bare.i root=hda8 noinitrd ro

Once the system is booted, login as root and do the following...

insert a blank floppy...then do...

mkfs.msdos /dev/fd0

Then do...

dd if=/dev/hda8 of=/bootsect.lnx bs=512 count=1

Then do...

mcopy /bootsect.lnx a:

reboot into Windows, then copy the bootsect.lnx file from the floppy to C:\

Right click on "My Computer", click Properties, click the Advanced tab, click Settings under Startup and Recovery, click Edit, add the following on a seperate line...or...just edit c:\boot.ini and add the following...

C:\BOOTSECT.LNX="Slackware"

Save the file, reboot, then choose either Windows or Slackware. Anytime you recompile the kernel, or change Lilo, you'll need to follow the process again. HTH.

No it was in the MBR, but I think it got erased when I was playing with the windows partitions. Either that or it's not loading because it's pointing to the wrong root linux partition.

When I try "bare.i root=/dev/hda8 noinitrd ro" I type df and I'm still on fd2 as my root. And the rest I can't try because I don't have a floppy.

It was my impression that you already "nuked" your Linux partition.

I gave explicit directions to do what you request. You need to read the documentation for your distribution on exactly how you can boot a linux rescue environment.

Either that or download RIP (recovery is possible) and burn it to CD. Boot it. Then create a directory named sysimage in /mnt-- this means when you ls /mnt you should see some directories like hd and the newly created sysimage. The fricking directions are right there.