Ok here's the problem.

I have a users laptop that has a partitioned drive with Windows XP SP2 allready installed on it. He needs Slackware 10(.3 I think) installed on the second partition.

I have done this and followed all the config settings for Lilo, but lilo won't run .So I tried XP's boot manager using ***.lnx, but it won't boot into Slackware.

Things I cannot do are, uninstall Windows or create a boot disc. The laptop is a new one with a USB Floppy only which the Slackware installation doesn't find .

My level is a hair above newbie, Years ago I used to do some admin on internet servers, that long ago it was Slackware 3, then we moved to FreeBSD . I've done custom built kernels and stuff, but I aint much of a hacker (as you can tell)

Can anyone offer any suggestions that don't invole a ton of hacking?

Thanks

So, could you install Slackware? If you didn't simply boot the installation from Slackware's CD.

If you already installed it, configure LILO with liloconfig and you should be fine.

As already stated, done lilo config, no joy it doesn't run, boots straight into windows. Thats the whole crux of the problem

The boot cd takes you to a boot prompt, when you boot it then takes you into the install process

You can boot into your installed linux system using the install CD with something similar to the following at the boot promt.
bare.i root=hda2 noinitrd ro

bare.i can be replaced with your kernel of choice and hda2 with your slack partition.

From there you can try different lilo setting using either liloconfig or manually editing /etc/lilo.conf

This lets you fiddle with the lilo settings without having to redo the install each time.

Thats what I was looking for, thanks. Any ideas as to why Lilo won't load at boot? I've tried setting it to MBR and the other options to no avail

Make sure you try to boot the right partition. :-)
(Thats where I've done wrong myself a couple of times.)

If you want me to give more suggestions please post /etc/fstab and /etc/lilo.conf

Also check that the right kernel is present in /boot/ (often the default vmlinuz)