install LILO to the hard drive afterward?

felecha · 05-31-2001, 10:30 AM

Rookie question. I'm a student, just met Linux at the first of last term. Installed at home, too, so I could do homework at home. I allowed LILO as part of the CD install of RH 6.2, but soon had a tangle and had to fdisk /mbr to be able to get back into Windows. Since then I've kept to booting from a floppy. Now I recently had two floppies go bad on me so I couldn't boot at all (both made directly from the CD, following instructions), and both times had to scramble. So I'm looking at going back and trying to put LILO back on the mbr.

Can someone coach me on this?

mongrel · 05-31-2001, 01:34 PM

I dual-boot between windows and Linux, below is a portion of my lilo.conf file.

Code:

boot=/dev/hda  # this instructs lilo to install to the mbr

map=/boot/map

install=/boot/boot.b

vga=normal

default=linux # default OS, if no user intervention

prompt  # shows the boot: prompt to allow user to select OS

timeout=100 # miliseconds before default OS is loaded



image=/boot/vmlinuz # location of kernel

        label=linux

        root=/dev/hda5 # location of / partition

        initrd=/boot/initrd.img

        append=" hdc=ide-scsi hdd=ide-floppy " # sets up CDRW and Zip

        read-only # mounts / in ro mode during boot up

.

.

. 

other=/dev/hda1 # location of windows C: drive

        label=windows # label shown at prompt, may have to hit TAB to make it visible

        table=/dev/hda

I'm not sure if RH6.2 sets this up for you during the install, if not you'll have to edit /etc/lilo.conf by hand and then re-install lilo. To edit lilo.conf, as root just enter:

Code:

vi /etc/lilo.conf

from a terminal. When that is complete install lilo by entering the command:

Code:

/sbin/lilo

That should install lilo to the MBR and you should be able to boot to either windows or linux. When you get the boot prompt you should be presented with the choice to either boot windows or linux, if you do nothing linux will boot automatically, if you want windows, just type windows at the prompt and hit enter. Once you strike a key the countdown will stop.

Hope this helps.

trickykid · 05-31-2001, 02:20 PM

RedHat will automatically adjust your settings if you have windows already setup, Well 95 or 98 I do know of.
You need a boot disk though to be able to boot into Linux, then follow those steps above to get it reinstalled back to your MBR.

felecha · 05-31-2001, 04:04 PM

I tried and got:

Reading boot sector from /dev/hda
Merging with /boot/boot.b
Warning: device 0x0306 exceeds 1024 cylinder limit
Fatal: sector 46319427 too large for linear mode (try 'lba32' instead)

Any ideas?

I also installed Windows 2000 a while ago, as part of my school studies. Is the MBR just too full?

I have Partition Magic 6.0, which I used some time back, at the first of the term, for partitioning before installing Linux and W2000. So I have BootMagic, too. Maybe that plays into the problem with sticking LILO in there?

I disabled BootMagic long ago, It was a nuisance.

F

linuxcool · 06-04-2001, 09:17 PM

The MBR never gets full. It just gets overwritten by other code. You said you had BootMagic on it once. When BootMagic is installed, it saves a copy of the MBR so that if you decide to uninstall it, it will replace the MBR with its old contents. I believe lilo also saves a copy of the MBR and you can remove lilo and restore the MBR to its original code by running the command ' lilo -u '.

The error "Warning: device 0x0306 exceeds 1024 cylinder limit" I believe is indicating that lilo is having a problem with the location of the data it needs to load. That 1024 cylinder is problem older versions have in trying to read in data past the 1024 cylinder of the harddrive. It's due to a limitation in the computer's BIOS. I also believe it is indicating this problem is on partition hda6.

As for the error "Fatal: sector 46319427 too large for linear mode (try 'lba32' instead)", it could be it is unable to access that sector because the linear mode won't let it. In your lilo.conf, there may be a line that says ' linear '. Change it to ' lba32 ' and see what that does. Don't forget, any changes you make to lilo.conf you have to rerun lilo.

You can get back into linux by using the rescue mode. Check here.