Hello,

I just installed Slackware 9.1 and I am very happy with it so far. I only have one huge issue with it at this point : I can't boot into windows 98 with Lilo.

The windows 98 se partition is on the primary slave hard disk, /dev/hdb, and it sits alone on that hard disk as /dev/hdb1. It is automatically mounted at boot and works fine under linux.

What is weird is that I *can* boot into win98se by going into the bios and telling it to start on the slave hard disk. It actually boots fine if I do that.

If I tell the bios to start on the master hard disk, it will boot into Lilo. If I choose Linux in Lilo, everything will go smoothly. If I choose Windows98 in Lilo, then either it completely freezes, or it freezes but Ctrl-Alt-Del still works, or it simply reboots automatically.

Both windows 98 SE / slackware 9.1 are fresh installs from a few hours ago, and I thoroughly scanned both hard disks before installing, no bad sectors were found.

Here is the relevant part in my lilo.conf :
--------------
# DOS bootable partition config begins
other = /dev/hdb1
label = Windows98
table = /dev/hdb
# DOS bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/hda1
label = Linux
read-only
# Linux bootable partition config ends
---------------
I have tried both to comment and uncomment the "table = /dev/hdb" line but it didnt change anything. And yes I ran lilo every time I made a change.

I am at a loss, I can't figure out what I did wrong, thanks in advance for any help,
-Danodare

First thought - after you edited lilo.conf, did you rerun the lilo program? If not, as root, run: /sbin/lilo Any changes you make to lilo will not take effect until you run the lilo program.

If that fails, and considering that you just installed things a couple of hours ago, I'd suggest just redoing it, but install Windows first, then Linux. Windows won't play nice with OS's, and insists on being installed on the primary master (it will also overwrite you MBR) so it's easier and takes a lot less time to just let it have what it wants. Linux can be installed anywhere. -- J.W.

Windows expects to be on the first partition of the primary drive. I suggest that you make your Windows98 drive the primary drive and your Linux drive the slave drive (this may require jumper position changes on the hard drives and/or BIOS changes).

In my case I have Windows98 loaded into the first partition on my hard disk and Linux loaded on the second partition. My lilo.conf contains the following:

# DOS bootable partition config begins
other = /dev/hda1
label = Windows98
table = /dev/hda
# DOS bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/hda2
label = Linux
read-only # Non-UMSDOS filesystems should be mounted read-only for checking
# Linux bootable partition config ends

When I boot the computer I can select whether to run Windows98 or Linux and both start without problems.

In your case you will want the line "root = /dev/hda2" to read "root = /dev/hdb1".

Here is a partial copy of my lilo.conf

# START Windows98
other = /dev/hda3
label = Windows98
boot-as = 0x80
# END Windows98

Notice the boot-as flag? That's what you need to trick your Windows 98 to think that it is installed on primary HDD. Change /dev/hda3 to your device, and there shouldn't be any problems...

Thank you thank you thank you !!!!

I was about to unplug both harddisks to look for jumper configuration to do as the other poster suggested.

Just added that line "boot-as = 0x80", and it works =)

Many many many thanks !!

I'm glad that it worked. Cheers!