NTLDR is missing
The only OS on my desktop is Slackware 13.1, which has been loading normally from /dev/sda1 for the last 5 months.
Yesterday it would not load, giving the message Quote:
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Checked lilo.conf, all as it should be; ran lilo; no difference. Checked BIOS setup, looked normal but restored defaults anyway; no difference. Reinstalled Slackware 13.1; no difference. The output from fdisk -l appears normal Quote:
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That's a windows error message you are getting; NTLDR is part of the the windows bootloader system and the error message is what you get when it gets corrupted or overwritten. Post your lilo.conf. Was windows ever installed on any of your hard drives?
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Overlapping partitions maybe.
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# LILO configuration file |
You have two hard drives, one with a single Linux partition and another 500GB drive with a single windows partition. What's that? A data partition? Do you see the Lilo boot menu when you initially boot the machine? What options show? Which drive is set to first boot priority in the BIOS?
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Your lilo.conf file shows an entry for windows and Linux.
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You don't indicate what you have on the external drive, ntfs data? I would think that moving the Linux entry up before the windows entry would work but I haven't used Lilo for years so that is just a guess. On the other hand, since you said you don't even see the Lilo boot menu, I don't see how that would work. The windows error message would be coming after the BIOS tries to access boot files on the drive. If you have a Live CD you can use, you could google bootinfoscript, read the documentation on how to run it, run it and post it here as it will provide a lot of information on your systems and boot files. |
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To correct this situation, just comment out these lines as shown, all of which are for loading a windows installation on sdb1: #other = /dev/sdb1 #label = Windows #table = /dev/sdb Then the only entry in lilo.conf will be your slackware installation on sda1. In order for these changes to take effect, you will have to rewrite the changes in lilo.conf to the mbr which can only be done by running as root: # lilo -v If you are able to boot into slackware with the installation cd or by other means do so, make the changes to lilo.conf and run lilo -v to write the changes to the mbr. If you can't boot into slackware, boot with your livecd, mount the sda1 at say /media/sda1, make the changes to lilo.conf, and then run lilo -v from within a chroot environment by running the following commands as root: # chroot /media/sda1 or whatever mount point you used for sda1 # lilo -v Make sure lilo runs without error messages. The changes should now be effective and you should boot directly into slackware on sda1 on reboot. |
I thank you both, kilgoretrout and yancek, unplugging the external hd solved the problem. It then went to the Slackware bootup logo, and I could start it normally. It must have been trying to find a valid MBR on /sdb1, which caused the generation of the error message. The mystery is why it began doing this, when its been quite happy loading from /sda1 for the last few months with /sdb1 plugged in all that time.
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