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Old 12-26-2003, 04:11 PM   #1
Snagglepuss
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Distribution: Slackware 9.1
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LILO boot error


Getting a LI w/blinking underscore on reboot and can't type.

SW 9.1 install. I'm a noob so pardon my ignorance.

I've already read through all similar posts and tried reconfiguring LILO in all possible combinations and still getting just the LI with a blinking underscore at bootup. Only option I have not done is installing LILO to floppy.

Using a stand-alone Slackware Linux installation... no other OS. Fresh hard drive, completely wiped.

Any help is really appreciated.
 
Old 12-26-2003, 04:28 PM   #2
synaptical
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can you post your lilo.conf and drive layout? also, did you run lilo or /sbin/lilo as root after your lilo.conf was set up?
 
Old 12-26-2003, 04:38 PM   #3
Snagglepuss
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hda1 = swap (512Mb)
hda2 = root (~14.5Gb)

Yes, I ran LILO from both root and /sbin after reconfiguring. Tried both superblock and MBR... neither worked.

Relavent liloconfig settings:
boot = /dev/hda
message = /boot/boot_message.txt
prompt
timeout = 1200
vga = normal
image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/hda2
label = Linux
read-only

Thanks!
 
Old 12-26-2003, 04:54 PM   #4
synaptical
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hmm, this might be one of those flukey things that someone with more experience would know about. until then, what i would do is run the liloconfig utility again and this time set up lilo on a boot floppy. if that boots, that might help isolate the problem as being something to do with your hard disk, boot sector, etc. you have booted into this system before, right? i mean, your partitions are initialized or whatever to be able to boot?
 
Old 12-26-2003, 04:57 PM   #5
Snagglepuss
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Yes, all partitions created fresh, all packages installed. Just can't get it to boot from HD by inself.

Guess I'll try the floppy approach. Thanks for all your help!
 
Old 12-27-2003, 06:46 AM   #6
Snagglepuss
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Talking Problem solved!

I had to manually edit the lilo.conf file (after a quick lesson using vi). It seems thats running liloconfig was creating a problem in one line of the file.

boot = /dev/hda2
(my actual boot partition)

...needed to be changed to
boot = /dev/hda

... even though I had specifically typed /dev/hda in liloconfig. It seems to me that liloconfig is picking-up the wrong path designation when it writes lilo.conf.

This problem/solution had been mentioned in other threads also. Thanks for the response synaptical!

Another noob problem solved... I'm off to find another!

Last edited by Snagglepuss; 12-27-2003 at 06:49 AM.
 
Old 12-27-2003, 03:14 PM   #7
synaptical
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yeah that is totally weird, because the lilo.conf you posted looked okay. so you type "/dev/hda" in liloconfig, and it puts "dev/hda2" in the lilo.conf file? weird. maybe that's why i never use those configuration tools and like to learn how to do everything by hand. no mysteries.
 
Old 12-29-2003, 01:08 AM   #8
gnashley
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That is strange. I'll point out that the entry really should be '/dev/hda1' to be most correct, even if you have only one partition.
 
  


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