lilo boot menu gone
 

hello all.
hopefully sum1 can help me....
I had a dual boot of linux and windows 2000. OS boot was chosen
via a lilo boot menu..
however I had to format my c: drive.... linux is on another phyiscal drive so t still exists.
after re-installing windows 2000 and starting my machine the LILO menu no longer appers and boots straight into windows....
can any1 tell me how i can get back my lilo menu and hence boot into linux....
thanks in advance....

DId you make a Linux bioot floppy?

If you did, then you can use that to get into Linux. Once in, login as root and run sbin/lilo. You can then configure it and install it again.

running linux on laptop and have no floppy drive... :(

can however see and extract files from linux using explore2fs ....

That wont help him, because it will not execute an application, which is what he needs to do.

What distro are you using? You could do a reinstall of Linux. You coulds also use a CD-ROM based distro to run from, like DemoLinux.

If your CD drive is bootable, and if you have a recent distro, you should be able to use your install CD in "rescue" mode. Usually, that involves hitting the F1 key at boot up and entering:

rescue

at the prompt. From there you may even have an option to reinstall Lilo without having to get into your Linux space.

mmmm... i dont have the distro install cd.....agghhhhh..
i have my lilo.conf file which i can burn on cd from windows...

Windoze 2000 always rewrite the MBR no matter if it is on the second HD... So your gentle Win2000 killed LILO. Try to boot with your installation cd (at prompt, type something like : root=/dev/hdXX ro

If you don't have a linux floopy or a installation cd, you have a problem. I don't know how you installed Linux first, but you will probably need to reinstall. Or to download an image of the installation cd from the web.

Or maybe you should try to find a "multi boot progs" that support linux?

linux was already installed when i received the laptop.... unfortunatly re-installng is not really an option..... there has to be some alternative :( .....
bloody windows......

Happy late birthday Celtic32, I saw your name on the list yesterday, but was a little slow ;)

and what a plonker I am ..... birthday is 11th of october.... just heading off to do a course in filling in forms...

anyways..... problem still not fixed....
i installed a boot loader...
when i installed it ... on boot up it detected partitions and all that but the only thing it wud boot was crappy windows..my distro is linux rock... .. do i actually need a bootable iso image form them or will any distro do??

I think any distro will do as long as it has a rescue mode. I know redhat does, maybe they all do. Pop it in and power up choose rescue mode and mount your linux HD.