Hey guys, I need some help finishing a Debian install. Here's my 2 problems:

(1) installed Debian 3.0r1 Woody on hda, with XP already installed on hdb. It has on the lilo boot screen all my XP partitions, not just hdb1, but it won't boot XP. It just displays something like Booting Windows on hdb1 and stays there indefinitely. (XP will boot if I enter cmos and change the boot order to that hd first.)

Now there's only one problem. From reading other posts, fancypiper had recommended to reconfigure x. I did that and changed my video card settings according to a link he provided and now I have installed WindowMaker and am at the last part of the Verbose Walkthrough. Yipee! I still need help with the boot issue.

Sorry for the double post - I posted in the Newbie forum about 10 hours ago but only had 14 views so far and no response.

TIA

Just did a fresh install of Debian according to The Very Verbose Debian 3.0 Installation Walkthrough, and got the same error again. Maybe that's why grub has replaced lilo in newer distros. Debian's installer also selects every partition out there, not just the area(s) that contain the mbr.

ummm... what exactly are you asking. posting your lilo.conf file may help. manually editing it is pretty easy. grub has taken over for some unfair press about lilo still being insecure. i guess a few other reasons but who knows. but if its still a problem post it and we'll figure it out. promise

Sorry for the confusion.

When I reboot, lilo gives me the choices of Linux or Windows (hdb1), now that I have removed all the other Windoze partitions from lilo. When installing Debian, it lists ever other partition it can find, irregardless of whether or not they're bootable partitions.

If I choose Windows (hdb1) for the boot choice, Iilo displays:

boot: Windows (hdb1)
Loading Windows (hdb1)

and it goes no further. So I can ctrl+alt+del and get back to lilo. (Windoze will reboot if I esc after the video screen and chose the 2nd drive.)

If I select lilo it boots into Debian. At first it would hang every time, with this error:

boot:
Loading Linux...................................
Uncompressing Linux......................
invalid compressed format (err=1)
--System halted

and ctrl+alt+del wouldn't work, only a reset, at which time it would boot. Since I removed the other 5 Windoze partitions, this problem seems to have stopped.

My /etc/lilo.conf looked like a manual, but here is what seems to me to be the pertinent part. This may be the wrong information, but since I only have experience with grub, and all the lilo stuff was too confusing, please give me instructions if this isn't what you need.



# Boot up Linux by default.
#
default=Linux

image=/vmlinuz
label=Linux
read-only
# restricted
# alias=1

image=/vmlinuz.old
label=LinuxOLD
read-only
optional
# restricted
# alias=2

# If you have another OS on this machine to boot, you can uncomment the
# following lines, changing the device name on the `other' line to
# where your other OS' partition is.
#
# other=/dev/hda4
# label=HURD
# restricted
# alias=3
other=/dev/hdb1
label="Windows(hdb1)"

TIA

(I just want a trimmed down Linux OS to run: a mail client, a web browser, Gimp, Scribus, and something to replace Dreamweaver - for now. My background is in Windoze. That box runs like a screaming cheeta, but I want to be Windoze free!)

Hi

Greetings from UK.

The problem could be in configuring lilo (or grub - whatever) to dual boot properly. Try the urls below for some tips on this.

http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/view...er08/lilo.html or
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/LILO.html

Alternately, the linux documentation project has the whole of version 4 of LFS as a pdf file at :

http://www.tldp.org/guides.html#lfs

I found this very useful indeed on first installing Debian, in fact I would probably not have succeeded without it. However it is very much "recipes" - i.e. doing by rote, rather than genuine appreciation. But it did give me a first path into uncharted territory.

Sorry I cannot be more specific. I am learning as I go too.
Maurice

Maurice,

Thanks. I've read all those and more. Still nothing to tell me why it won't boot XP. I thought perhaps a guru may read the post and be able to see what is wrong. Perhaps padlamoij will view this thread again.

Somewhere in Markus Welsch posts he wrote told how to remove lilo and use grub. Unless someone can tell me how to fix lilo, I think I'll find his info and switch bootloaders. When I used RedHat grub worked.

The only other thing I thought of trying was :

other=/dev/hdb1
label=windows
table=/dev/hdb

then run

/sbin/lilo -v

But I'm grabbing at straws. Good luck.

Maurice

Its not something silly like Not having the same version of lilo on both boot sectors ?!