Ok let's start from here.

I have been using windows xp on my desktop for a long time. I have been using redhat linux on my laptop for a long time. Since it was a laptop I only was in console, didn't like x anyway.

I obtained another hd and installed it on my desktop.
I installed slack on the new hd. So now I have xp & slack.
installation went fine. I installed LILO to the mbr .
When i rebooted, i got the scrolling 9's some people know what I'm talking about if you don't it's something like this after the bios the screens spits this out



" L 9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 9999999999999999999999999999999'
Than it goes on and says
"NO ROM BASIC"
"SYSTEM HALTED"

Given that I went to irc talked to people on #slackware if they had any idea. They informed it's a lilo problem. People have tried to fix it but no luck.

My xp hd is /dev/hde, which is also the hd the bios says boots up.

The linux hd is /dev/hdg, which has 2 partitions, 1 native, 1 swap.

In fdisk I made sure to set the id to 82.

So now I'm up to a point where the lilo has information on linux and xp. I've ran liloconfig many times. and have installed on floppy,superblock,and mbr. Neither works.

I also decided to setup slack on my friends laptop , dell inspiron 8000 to my amazement I saw lilo screen. On my desktop I didn't even see the LILO screen just the 9's


I've come to found the rom basic thing means there is no bootable parition, but i've made both of them bootable and toggled it off and on,so that can't be the problem.

I will try to post the lilo.conf when I hop on my laptop, but it points to root = /dev/hde
and linux /dev/hdg1 table = /dev/hdg. With xp it's like this

other=/dev/hde1
table=/dev/hde
label= XP
I've also added the map-drive thing 0x81 to :0x85 and so on, nothing works.

it also uses LBA32.

Another thing people have mentioned to me that it may be the way the hd's are setup. I currently have them both hooked up to a ide controller (promise ultra100) which has 2 ide slots. I have 3 ide slots on my mb, but they are used up.


If you need anymore information please ask I need to get this working, mainly because it's bugging me and a lot of other people

If it's any help the nines are an exit error code if you didnt know. From man lilo: 99 invalid second stage index sector (LILO)

Thanks didn't know that. I recently just installed mandrake 9 to see if it would work, guess what? works fine, boots xp and linux, weird. The lilo.conf is a bit different now due to the distro but overall it's booting the same thing.

I can't stand lilo, it has gone ape tit on me so many times I got sick of it. I use grub now.

just fix the windows MBR with the fixmbr command, then reinstall LILO (or as yowww suggested switch to grub, seeing that LILO is giving you problems).

Exactly what synaptical said, when it says "No Rom Basic" means that there is no way for the system to boot. Nothing is on the MBR in other words. If you happen to have a Linux boot disk laying around you could skip straight to the LILO installation.


BTW - the exact command from a windows boot disk is:

fdisk /mbr

Thanks,but slack is just not instaling it right.
Also the command is "fixmbr" or "fixboot" for bootsector, recovery console in 2k/xp, the others were for the older os's.

I just find it weird that it never installed
Thanks anyway