Lilo Install Error # 1
 

I'm trying to install Slackware 10.2 and I got as far as "Select LILO destination" and then got this error. I had three options: Root, Floppy, and MBR. I chose the Master Boot Record and got this Error: "LILO INSTALL ERROR #1." I was a little confused on partitioning my hard drive in the beginning. Maybe I made some kind of error?

I made a 1 Gb Swap partition type 82 (primary) and a partition to cover the rest of the hard drive type 83 (primary). I did not make a boot partition. Is that why LILO did not install correctly?

Please HELP!

Not neccessarily. If I were you though, I'd repartition my drive and just reinstall. It'll be easier for you. Especially since you haven't set anything up yet. I recomend you setup your harddrive like this

hda1 32M /boot
hda2 512M /swap
hda3 4-10G / or /root (same thing, different names)
hda4 10-20G /home
hda5 the rest unused in case you want to dual-boot later with another distro

Install lilo to hda1 of course. You can change your numbers there to suit your harddrive size. I wouldn't use more than 512 for swap unless you have a slow computer and not alot of RAM, the rest will just be wasted hdd space if you do. Good luck, Slack is good distro.

This may seem like a stupid question, but keep in mind I'm a newbie...I would be installing LILO on a boot partition and not in the MBR? Would I have to do this manually? What option do I choose at LILO installation screen - root, floppy, mbr?

In case anyone is wondering, I got it to work. I chose expert install at the LILO part of installation and found out that by default it installs to /dev/hda. I have my hard drive as a slave on /dev/hdb so I had to change that and add my root partition to the LILO config. LILO installed fine and voila! System boots.

vidguy, congratualtions and thanks for following up. If other users are ever stuck in a similar jam, they'd know what to do.

Cheers!

I'm glad you got it to work. I've had similar trouble with the Grub boot loader before. Those things, to be so small, and seemingly so simple, can be an awfull large pain in the butt sometimes!

I'm glad to post anything that would help somebody in the future. I'm really loving these forums - everyone is cool and very helpful and I look foward to contributing once I know what the heck I'm doing! lol :)