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I have the same problem, with a few deviations:
1. I put LILO on a diskette (about a year ago I put it on the MBR, had the same problem and couldn't use my computer for a week. Burn me once shame on you, burn me twice...)
2. My error is L with 07 repeating
3. The error code pops up before LILO's menu shows up.
Would I follow the same guidelines to fix the problem?
I am using Slackware 11's installer, and I have tried to reinstall LILO onto the diskette at least half a dozen times, both simple install and expert mode. I have Linux on I believe the master drive (I just switched them before I installed LILO, power cords werent long enough as is). Windows is on the other drive.
I remember having this error a long time ago and I can't remember for the life of me how I fixed it.
The "root=" statement is a hard disk address for Lilo to load the root of the Linux into the memory. Therefore you can't have root=/dev/fd2 because a floppy is too small to store the root filing system of the entire Linux.
I think you could put root=/dev/hdb3 if that is the partition of "/" of your Linux.
To put Lilo on a floppy you do it with the command
Code:
lilo -b /dev/fd0
The above will install Lilo into the floppy that boot up the Linux in hdb3.
ok, thanks a lot for the help, I don't think I put that fd2 on there... but sure enough it's in the lilo.conf. Who knows, I may just be going senial at a very early age lol.
Lilo has been serving many old kernels and it is true one can put a kernel into a floppy in the older days and has the whole system in a floppy (no GUI).
Nowadays it is a lot easier to boot up Lilo in a floppy and let it go into the hard disk to load the kernel and the root of the Linux.
Well I still can't get it to load right, I either get a 99 error code or a 04 code.
I get these warnings when I install LILO:
"Warning: '/proc/partitions' does not exist, disk scan bypassed"
"Warning: The boot sector and map file are on different disks"
Well I've gotten further, all the way past the LILO menu, but it still hangs at
Code:
boot: Loading Linux............................
Here is a summary of what is going on.
I am booting from a floppy (/dev/fd0). My Slackware partition is /dev/hdb3. I am using the vmlinuz kernal.
Here is my custom-made lilo.conf (which is in /etc/lilo.conf)
I have LILO on a floppy so I can boot Linux immediately.
Code:
disk=/dev/hdb #this line and
bios=0x80 #this line tell BIOS to treat hdb as the master drive
map=/mnt/floppy/map #tells LILO where to put the map file (I don't know what that is, just know I need it
default=Linux #which image to boot automatically
boot=/dev/fd0 #which device to put all of this on, the floppy
prompt #brings up the prompt
timeout=0 #I have it set up just to boot the default image instead of waiting for input
change-rules #don't know what this is for
reset #this goes along with the line above, I just see it in all the sample lilo.conf files
#Start Linux partition
image=/boot/vmlinuz
root=/dev/hdb3
initrd=/boot/initrd.gz #I think this is the problem, it should start loading everything after saying "Loading Linux" and that is what this is for
label=Linux
read-only
#End Linux partition
It gives me no warnings when I run /sbin/lilo. When I then reboot, it goes all the through the menu then just hangs.
I compiled the initrd.gz by typing in
Code:
mkinitrd -c -f reiserfs -r /dev/hdb3
So I think my problem is I may be building initrd.gz wrong. Any ideas?
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