I installed allready a few times debian on that vaio sony notebook (its not mine, but its the one of a friend ...) and all worked pretty well.
So now I really want slackware on that box cause I like slackware more I have really good experiences on my thinkpad with slackware 10.2 ...

So I tried to install slackware on that vaio box strictly from cd cause there no floppy and no chance to connect an extern floppydrive.
Installation proces worked well exept this lilo install ...
... I dont really understand why I cant write to the masterbootrecord cause under debian it works
I would make a bootfloppy but there is like I sad no possibility to connect a floppydrive ...
Some ideas? I really would enjoy some slackware on that box

thx in advance (hopefully)

Hi,

Did you make the partition active/boot when you created? You can check this with fdisk or cfdisk. The partition would have an asterisk in the active/boot column to indicate so.

You could use the install cd1 or a live-cd to use the fdisk or cfdisk utilities.

You could use the install cd1 to boot your slackware!

thanx for your help so far!
well it is some time ago, but I think the slackware root-partition had the boot flag not activated, because there is windows on that box (same harddrive differend partition) ...

If I could boot the installed slackware from slackware installationdisc1 that would be a nice try, I than could install grub and see weather grub works.
But how do I boot my installed slackware with the installationdisc1 and do not reinstall?

Hi,

As I stated in a previous post, you can use the install cd1 as a boot cd. Check and make sure that the partition is active for the boot. If it is a windows partition and is the active boot then you can use lilo to do a dual boot. Since you loaded linux after windows.

If it is a matter of just editing your current lilo then just boot with the cd1. Create a mount point such as;
[CODE]
#mkdir /mnt/tmpboot
#mount /dev/hdaN /mnt/tmpboot #change N to your%

Did you make sure that the MBR write protection is set to "off" in the bios? Sometimes they call it virus protection.

ok thx so far, but this laptop is the one of a friend and now she wants to keep her debian untill she buys herself a new harddisk (she wants to do that) - than I will try your help and say how it worked ...

till than

Welcome to LQ!

Install LiLO to the MBR.

Slackware (Linux) does not need a partition flagged "bootable".

LiLO will boot both Windoze XP and Slackware (Linux).

You boot with the Slackware CD1 by issuing at the boot: prompt
where x is the Slackware / (root) partition.

Advise her to buy a Seagate drive.

Is her name Debbie, or yours Ian? If not, she/you shouldn't use DebIan. ;-)

Hi,

Just to clear up the OP. The active partition for the /dev/hda would be the windows /dev/hda1. The boot could be set to active if you wish to boot other distributions on different partitions or different devices with other partitions either via mbr or superblock.

You then would setup lilo/grub to select the desired distro. This would be set within the stanza of the configuration file for each distro. You can write the lilo/grub to the superblock for this method.

As for the advice to purchase a Seagate drive. That would not be my first choice for a hard disk!