Mandrake 9 LILO help
 

I finish installing Mandrake 9.0. When booting up I only see "LIL". It will pause and be stuck there. So I have no way to boot up Mandrake. However, I'm able to boot by inserting a Win98 start-up disk then type in "fdisk" from there I just go to set active partittion (I don't set nor change nothing.) Exit, remove the the Win98 start-up disk. And what do you know. It boots normal. How can I fix this? Thanks.

From my understanding "LIL" is a prompt error

L<nn> Where nn represents one of 16 disk-errors codes.
LI The second-stage boot loader loaded, but could not run.
LIL The descriptor table could not be read.
LIL? The second-stage boot loader loaded at an incorrect address.
LIL- LILO found a corrupt descriptor table.
LILO LILO ran successfully.

I got this reference from the Red Hat Unleashed third edition book page 44

You can boot into "Rescue" mode by placing your install CD into the drive, and at the first screen where you press "Enter to continue" or "F1 more options" press F1. Type "rescue" then hit enter.

Now post us the contents of the:
/etc/lilo.conf
file.

You also might wanna tell us a bit about your drive setup, and maybe also post the output of:
/sbin/fdisk -l

Cool

Hope his will help you help me.
 

this is my lilo.conf

boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
default=linux
keytable=/boot/us.klt
prompt
nowarn
timeout=100
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label=linux
root=/dev/hda1
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi quiet"
vga=788
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label=linux-nonfb
root=/dev/hda1
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi"
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label=failsafe
root=/dev/hda1
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="devfs=nomount hdc=ide-scsi failsafe"
read-only
other=/dev/fd0
label=floppy
unsafe

I'm a newbie still so I was not able to get the content of \sbin\fdisk -l but I will try my best to give you the knowledge of what I think you are talking about. This is from the hda mount point in Mandrake Control Center:
hda:
mount point: \
device: hda1
type journalised FS:ext3
Size: 5.30GB (28%)
formatted
Mounted

Mount point swap
device: hda5
type: linux swap
size: 243MB (1%)
Formatted
Mounted

Mount point: \home
device: hda6
type: journalised FS: ext3
size: 13GB (70%)
Formatted
Mounted

Someone please help, I finally have linux, but now scared to shutdown my computer :cry: :cry: :cry:
Thanks in advance

(B)ring (U)p (M)y (P)ost

extra note
 

Don't know if this matter, but I found out that I can just use the window 98 start up. Don't have to type a thing. Just start up the computer with the Windows start-up disk in the floppy drive, then remove it and restart. Then for some strange reason this will cause linux to boot normal.

So you have your linux drive as the Primary Master, where is your win drive?

And I've only got some ideas, since I am not completely sure what's going on:
Back in that rescue mode, you have the option to reinstall LILO, go ahead and do that, if there is an error message, do you best to remember it to post it.

I am thinking though, that the problem is in your drive/partition arrangement. Most of the time win likes to be on the primary master, and the first partition too. But I am not sure if that'd cause the problems you appear to be getting.

Cool

This is whats fun
 

I don't have Windows 98 install at all. But I can use the windows98 start-up disk to start to get LILO to work right to load Linux. I don't understand this myself. I just do the rescue advice you gave me. If it don't work, it will not be a big deal. The knowledge is worth it. Thanks for the help.

Lilo
 

I have Mandrake Linux 9, and i tried LILO and it would not boot a partition past the 1024 cylinder. So then i tried Grub (another boot loader included in Mandrake Linux 9) and it worked. You can install this during installation of linux, when you choose the bootloader choose Grub.


Hope this helps
Tim

Thanks for all the help
 

Yeah I think GRUB will be better for me. I still don't know the problem, but I not going to let it get me down. And thanks for the help. I appreciate the way people takeout time to help other in need at this forum.