Triple boot lilo problem Win7, fedora, slackware
 

Hi Guys,

Searched the forums for the answer to this. No luck I am afraid. Trying to boot Windows and Fedora from lilo in slackware.

First disk /dev/sda contains Windows split into two partitions.
Second disk contains both Fedora and Slackware. Fedora root is on first partition sdb1, second is swap sdb2, third is fedora /home sdb3, fourth is slackware root sdb5, sixth is slackware /home sdb6 and finally sdb7 is shared data.

Here is the relevant bits of lilo.conf
I am able to boot into Slackware and Windows no problem, but not able to boot into Fedora. Slackware lilo is configured on the MBR of sda and Fedora is configured on the MBR of sdb1.

If I change the boot order after rebooting I can load Fedora so it does boot okay. Only not from lilo.

Output of running lilo from the terminal with the above configuration file in slackware.

for fedora mount the fedora root partiiton to /mnt and modify /etc/lilo.conf for fedora to look something like this, I don't use fedora so I don't know its kernel naming convention and or if an initrd is used.
for windows the entry will be similar to this
If you have grub installed some where from your fedora installation you can also chainload to it to boot fedora

Okay - have tried various different things to try and add fedora to lilo.conf and to boot from lilo. First attempt screwed up Fedora so much that a reinstall was required.
Prior to breaking Fedora Fedora's boot directory contained the following
Plus grub directory and others.

After a reinstall of Fedora with the same discs, vmlinuz-2.6.40.6-0.fc15.i686 and initramfs-2.6.40.6-0.fc15.i686.img were no longer present in the Fedora boot directory.
Fedora now boots with the default vmlinuz-2.6.38.6-26.rc1.fc15.i686 where previously it booted with vmlinuz-2.6.40.6-0.fc15.i686
Current option in grub...
I am able to access the the Fedora partition in Slackware from KDE window as an available drive. I can also view the files in the terminal in the /media directory. When I try to add it to lilo (lilo.conf below)
Where "_Fedora-15-i686-" is the label that appears in Slackware for the Fedora root partition.

Windows as is works and boots from lilo, so no problem there

Output from running lilo is as follows...
Anyone have any ideas? Has anyone managed to dual boot Fedora with lilo.

I prefer lilo and would rather use this rather going down the grub root.

Make sure grub is installed in /dev/sdb1

Boot from fedora install CD/DVD and run: grub

grub>root (hd1,0)
grub>setup (hd1,0)
grub>quit

then eject CD/DVD, reboot in slackware and add entry in lilo.conf:

# Fedora bootable partition config begins
other = /dev/sdb1
label = Fedora
# Fedora bootable partition config ends

run: lilo -v

Thanks Cedrik, will try that out.

Just starting out with a fresh install of both OSes. Tinkered around so much now that I starting afresh would seem the best thing to do.

Installed Slackware with out installing lilo, what is the command to run it after the install?

Plan is to install lilo on the second hard drive, sdb. Install Fedora, then allow grub to install on the MBR of sda. Try and chainload (do not know if it is the right word for lilo) Fedora grub from there.

In this case, the best plan is to install fedora in last imho

This way you install grub from the fedora installer

Also if you install grub, you don't need Lilo at all

will set up lilo initially then after that any changes are made by editing the /etc/lilo.conf file and the run

Thanks colorpurple21859, managed to install lilo on sdb1 (second disk). Installed Fedora, with grub loading from within the MBR.

Can now boot the three operating systems from Grub, and thanks to Cedrik I can also boot the three from lilo now.

For refernce here is lilo.conf mount points now.
Fedora for some reason doesnot like installing grub on the second disk (sdb) unless you stipulate it during the install procedure as the primary disk. Hence root (hd0, 0). At least that's the way it seems to me. Anyway, as a failsafe I can boot the second disk for lilo during the bios boot if grub get's corrupt at some point.

Over to the Fedora forums now for help with a couple of things. Also to find out how to edit grub2 so I can increase the timeout period.