How can I boot up Linux when lilo lost by winxp installation and without boot floppy? I have a 40GB HD, broken up into many partitions. On those, I have win98, win2000, linux, and winxp. I installed winxp last, and when I did it, the winxp seemingly wiped out lilo menu with it own MS loader, disabling access to linux partition. I do not have the linux boot floppy. Is there a way to boot to linux without installing the linux from the scratch on another partition? Is there a tool in winxp to edit loader and add pointer to the linux partition?

Thank you very much.

You could put in your Linux CD and then make a boot floppy from it. I'm not 100% sure how to do it, but maybe there's someone here who would know how.

hi
u must understand it well before u do it
put in the botable first cd of redhat. when the prompt comes i mean the first screen write tehre linux rescue
then 2 or 3 more screen will appers accept them
then it will take u to the shell
write there chroot /mnt/sysimage
then type lilo press enter
or type grub-install /dev/hd? a or b or c or d not any no# after that bcz u have to write it on the MBR of the partition

try it the loader files r /etc/lilo.conf or grub.conf
vi them and have a look at it

good luck

Thank you very much for the reply.

I will digest your suggestion and try very carefully.
Actually, I have a boot floppy diskette for the linux, but the boot diskette is made out of the /dev/hda3 partition, which I first installed the RH linux. Then, I installed another same RH linux on /dev/hda7 and did not make any bootable floppy out of the /dev/hda7. And I installed the WinXP on /dev/hda3, wiping out RH linux on there, since I did not use it much.

When I insert the boot diskette made for /dev/hda3, it run ok until it looks for the init file and then boot process hangs, asking to use the 'init= ' option at the beginning when 'boot: ' shows.

Thank you very much.

The RH CD-rom disk for rescue did not work. After asking 2 questions(language and keyboard), the next screen has misaligned messages and hangs. So I could not use the CD-rom(it came from the back of the book redhat bible)

I found out that I could make use of the diskette from the /dev/hda3, which was wiped out by winxp installation. After inserting the floppy, I type linux root=/dev/hda7 to use the root file system from /dev/hda7. So I successfuly booted to linux on /dev/hda7 and reran the lilo to replace MBR put in by Winxp.

Thank you very much.

Sweet deal! Gotta love it when you find out cool little tricks

Cool