Hi there,

Here's my situation:

Windows XP Pro
Windows 2000 Pro
RedHat Linux 8.0

I had been successfully running RedHat 7.0 and all was fine. I reformatted my ext3 partition and installed 8.0. I did not want to use LILO, I wanted to continue using ntldr. When I install LILO on the mbr, I can access Linux and the DOS install. If I put ntldr back on the mbr and use the bootsect.lnx method from the boot.ini, I only get "LI" when selecting Linux from the Windows boot selector.

My Linux install is on /dev/hda4 of a 60GB hard drive. It's waaay down there, on the end of the hard drive. Could this be an issue? If I use the boot floppy, I can get into RedHat fine. Then I used the:

dd if=/dev/hda4 of=bootsect.lnx bs=512 count=1

command to make my bootsect.lnx file. When I try to use it though, it won't boot. When I re-install LILO, my lilo.conf file has no root parameter for the linux install. It only has a reference to /boot/<image_name>

Any help would be appreciated!!

Thanks,
Paul

You should have
boot=/dev/hda4
in lilo.conf. Then install lilo, use 'dd....' as before, copy the file etc.
Should work.

Here is my lilo.conf file:

prompt
timeout=50
default=DOS
boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
message=/boot/message
lba32

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.18-27.8.0
label=linux
append="hdc=ide-scsi root=LABEL=/"
read-only
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.18-27.8.0.img

other=/dev/hda1
optional
label=DOS

You can see that there is no root parameter. I believe my linux install is on /dev/hda4, but when I do the dd command, the resulting file does not allow boot. Any thoughts on why my lilo.conf file is like this? Is it a feature of the new version of LILO? It works when I use LILO, but not when I use ntldr....

Thanks!

I think you can change your lilo.conf to
prompt
timeout=50
default=linux
boot=/dev/hda4
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
message=/boot/message
lba32

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.18-27.8.0
label=linux
append="hdc=ide-scsi root=LABEL=/"
read-only
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.18-27.8.0.img

You don't have 'root' alone, but it's in 'append' - passed to kernel, so you don't need to worry about this.

Save the file. Run 'lilo'. Then
dd if=/dev/hda4 of=bootsect.lnx bs=512 count=1
and copy the file to Windows C:.

When you don't install LILO to /dev/hda4 (you install it using 'lilo' command), you get 'empty' bootsect.lnx file. That's why it won't boot.

Aaah....

Well, to avoid the 1024 cylinder thing, I decided to repartition my drives with PartitionMagic and create my linux partition at the beginning of a slave drive. I'm going to re-install linux and I'll make sure to install LILO into my linux partition.

Thanks, I'll let you know how it goes...

Well, I re-installed Linux to the first partition of the secondary drive. I also installed LILO there. So far, it seems fine except that when I choose Linux from the ntldr menu, I get the LILO menu. I am removing the prompt parameter from the lilo.conf file and making linux the default. I am hoping that this causes it to boot directly to linux when I select it from the ntldr menu.

Thanks for the help!

Removing prompt (or making the wait time really short) should work correctly. But it's a good idea to have a choice, especially to be able to boot 'failsafe' kernel or to have an option to choose old kernel when you compile a new one.

But that's OK.