Having boot loader problems.
 

Hi. This is my first post. I've been sitting here 4 days straight trying to get my harddrive to use windows xp and linux of any kind.

After reading all over the internet i'm being told that the problem lies somewhere in the bios and harddrive.

My bios does not allow just LBA so it causing some problems. And my harddrive is also 120gb and i've heard that linux is unable to boot after like the 1024 cylinder or something like that.

Anyway the real problem is this. I install windows, works fine. I then install linux on the other half of the harddrive, I tell it to install the boot loader on the mbr. Ok reboot and it hangs, says L in top left corner with a blinkin dash.

So after alot more reading I realise i can edit the boot.ini so that I dont have to use the linux boot loader, which is great cause then i can get into windows no problem. But the only thing is the linux wont load up. When i try click the linux it goes to a blank screen with a flashin _

I'm hoping someone can provide me with some help.

I'd like to keep my boot.ini and allow it to point to the bootsect.lnx file that i took from the linux boot partition and stuck on c: drive.

But i believe the bootsect.lnx maybe be screwed, or the lilo.conf maybe having some problems.


Any help would be great.

Using mandrake 9.2 to try get this to work at the moment, I've had some serious issues with every distribution when it comes to the boot loader.

What happend when you ran /sbin/lilo?

Sorry. Had to go to bed.


Anyway. Ive run lilo.conf to change the boot from /dev/fd0 to /dev/hda5 which is the root partition.
I saved the file

Then i do /sbin/lilo and it says directory not found.

Am i running it wrong?

Ok so i got the lilo thing to work but its the same problem even when using the windows boot loader to get to lilo once u click on it. Lilo hangs at a blank screen with an L an a flashing cursor


Is there anyway that i can jus delete lilo and get the windows boot loader to boot straight into linux?

I don't use mandrake but it sounds like you installed lilo to the mbr and then reinstalled windows boot loader.If you wanted to use windows boot loader you need to install lilo to mandrakes root partition.Boot up the mandrake CD and a:reenstall lilo to the MBR and use lilo to boot both window and mandrake or b:boot up the mandrake cd and install lilo to use the windows boot loader.Use google to see how to do b.For a always run lilo or /sbin/lilo when you make changes to lilo.conf.

Actually, just go into cfdisk, and make hda1 bootable, if its already bootable, remove it, and set it, then write, and it should now have taken over the bootprocess, the you can add windows to the boot...
if you dont want to edit lilo.conf, run liloconfig and it will detect your windows partition, and add it:) good luck!