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missing operating system!

Hi everyone,
i am getting a missing operating system error on boot after multiple tries of installing slack 10

i am having trouble installing slackware 10.2 to a Compaq proliant dl360 machine. it uses the compaq smart array controller. i have run the smart start and i have configured the drives to no fault tolerance. its just basically one logical volume but 2 physical 18.2 scsi's.

i boot the machine using the raid.s kernel
i insert the 1st slack disc and run fdisk /dev/ida/c0d0. i partition the drive like this:
the compaq utilities (f10) is the 3rd partition.
i create a boot partition immediatley after so its 60Mb and under the 1024 limit.
next i create the root partition using the remaining space on the disk.

i set the boot partition as active.
i run through the setup (full) and all packages are installed. when it comes time to selelct the kernel i choose the cd kernels, insert the 1st disc again and choose raid.s (i don't know if this is necessary but i do it anyway)
it installs the kernel.
i skip the bootdisk - (cus it never works for me)
no modem, set time zone, default mouse, no to hardware clock, no to fonts, .. now lilo... where the trouble begins

i have been researching on the inet and it says to go into lilo expert mode...so i do. i choose to begin a new header. i install another partition to lilo - the active boot partition of 60Mb's. but when i veiw the lilo.conf before installing it i see that boot = /dev/ida/c0d0p4 - my root. shouldn't it be /dev/ida/c0d0p2 - my active boot partition?
some reseach has lead me to modifying the lilo.conf and running /sbin/lilo but EVERY website on this fails to mention..how you do this. how do i do this without linux running and from where?
i have tried many things and unfortunatey i am just not understanding the process perhaps. i would like to get linux up and running.

sorry for the long post but i am learning and loving it.

tony

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tony/osIRIs

You don't need to observe these cylinder limitations on recent hardware. May I suggest not creating a boot partition unless you will be running many many distros. To get your system running, consider 5G for root (/) and 5G for /home. That will be plenty of growth for a desktop machine.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tony/osIRIs

next i create the root partition using the remaining space on the disk.

Ok sounds good.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tony/osIRIs

i set the boot partition as active.

This is also not necessary. Only *bloze needs its partition marked active. Lilo and Grub will boot any bootable system without respect to the flag.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tony/osIRIs

i run through the setup (full) and all packages are installed. when it comes time to selelct the kernel i choose the cd kernels, insert the 1st disc again and choose raid.s (i don't know if this is necessary but i do it anyway)
it installs the kernel.
i skip the bootdisk - (cus it never works for me)
no modem, set time zone, default mouse, no to hardware clock, no to fonts, .. now lilo... where the trouble begins

i have been researching on the inet and it says to go into lilo expert mode...so i do. i choose to begin a new header. i install another partition to lilo - the active boot partition of 60Mb's. but when i veiw the lilo.conf before installing it i see that boot = /dev/ida/c0d0p4 - my root. shouldn't it be /dev/ida/c0d0p2 - my active boot partition?
some reseach has lead me to modifying the lilo.conf and running /sbin/lilo but EVERY website on this fails to mention..how you do this. how do i do this without linux running and from where?
i have tried many things and unfortunatey i am just not understanding the process perhaps. i would like to get linux up and running.

sorry for the long post but i am learning and loving it.

tony

I don't know anything about raid but some other guys here will surely help. In the meantime the lilo script on Slackware is not 100% sometimes it works great sometimes not at all.

To run lilo without a working linux installed, you can use the Slackware installation disk you are running from. But it may be easier to use a live CD (a bootable linux system on CD that doesn't need any HD) because it will have an editor and other things that might be easier to use.

You have to create the lilo.conf. For normal disks it's very easy, again I don't know about raid. Search the Slackware forum for lilo.conf and you will find many examples.

The best way to run bootloaders is to install them in the MBR and let the BIOS give control to the bootloader. To run lilo, you do

Code:



this executes lilo in test mode (not updating anything)

"#" is linux comment you don't type this, it's for your info only



lilo -v -t -b /diskaddr      # I don't know how to specify for raid

                            # but normal IDE would be /dev/hdan

                            # where n is partition number



and then when you don't get any error messages and are ready to update the MBR use



lilo -v -b /diskaddr

thanks for the response....

im afraid i am guilty of over-complicating the issue. i realized that alot of the info from my research online was out-dated and perhaps referred to earlier more troublesome versions of lilo.

i decided to create just one partition (/) and do the install over again. i chose the raid.s kernel and when finished installing all the packages i chose the simple install to see what it would do.. i installed lilo on the superblock of root. i chose the raid.s kernel again from the cd and viola... it worked.

thanks again.
Tony

I'm sorry, I didn't see your post. I'm glad you got it fixed and thanks for letting us know.

The only thing I would say is that not installing Lilo in the MBR is generally a bad idea. You will be fine until you start multibooting. It will be simpler then to install lilo in the MBR.

I am getting a proliant DL360 very soon.

Normally you are right about it being preferable to install lilo to the MBR, but with the case of the proliant series, installing to the MBR will make it unable to get to the compaq diagnostic utilities partition.

Therefore it is recommended to install LILO on the superblock