I have 3 HDD's in my system 2 SATA (Serial ATA) Raptors, and 1 IDE 120 gig. My first Raptor has Windows XP installed on an NTFS partition and LinuxMandrake 10.1 installed on a EXT3 partiton after windows. My seconed Raptor right now is just a data drive with an NTFS partion. My IDE Drive is also just a data Drive with an NTFS partiton. I have LILO installed in the MBR of my 1st Raptor and all that it does is boot strait into Windows XP when I have the IDE drive plugged in. When I unplug the IDE 120 gig it boots to the LILO menu (which I want it to do; since I can't get NTLDR to load Linux).

WHY IN THE HECK does it just boot strait into WindowsXP when the IDE drive is plugged in instead of loading LILO???????

The only thing I can think of is that somehow there is a copy of a Windows configured MBR on the IDE drive even though that drive does not have an operating system installed on it. If this is whats going on how do I remove the MBR from the IDE drive without risking any data loss. Or if this is not whats going on, SOMEONE PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHY IT IS DOING THIS.

THANK YOU!

Never seen this problem, but your theory sounds plausible. I'd first try to see if the BIOS settings or boot-time messages indicate what disk is being booted, though they normally flash past very quickly. Then I would obtain and boot a Knoppix CD (as I assume you cannot get into Linux while the IDE drive is plugged in).

You can use the 'file' command to probe the device (eg: file -Ls /dev/hda) and see if it does have a boot sector in the MBR. If it does, I would install LILO on that IDE disk, but configured so as to immediately chainload your SATA drive. That way you only have one LILO config to worry about. That won't damage anything on the disk, don't worry.

Finally I would remove all traces of both Windows and Linux and install NetBSD. :-)

TIM

Make sure your BIOS is booting the right disk with LILO on it and under LILO make sure you tell it which disk to load

there should be a line that looks something like this

root = /dev/hda

you can always add your other disks to the lilo configuration for your Windows Partition don't forget to run lilo as root after making changes to the file