I've got a Dell laptop with Win2K installed. I just installed RH 7.1 and now LILO doesn't give me my Windows option anymore. How can I get it to recognize my windows partition again? I can mount it in Linux just can't boot from it.

Since I generally work from Windows and play with Linux (and I'm at work now) I'm ready to take any drastic measures necessary, I have nothing of value on the Linux box, but I'm getting *very* nervous about not being able to get back to my windows side. Pls help soon....

LILO is installed on my MBR. THanks for any help...

Welcome to LQ. There should be no reason to get nervous. Linux isn't that bad .

Since you can only get into Linux, log in, open a terminal session (the thing that looks like a dos box) and do the following:

su root (then type root's password).
fdisk -l (that is a little L, BTW, and post the outcome here)
cat /etc/lilo.conf (and post the outcome here)
exit (returns you to a normal user)

This will give us the information about the partitions on your harddisk (from fdisk) and show us how your lilo is configured. With any luck, you will only need to change the settings in your lilo.conf file, and then re-run lilo.

<edit>
Oh, by the way. The lilo.conf file can be quite large, so you might want to do this, instead cat /etc/lilo.conf > ~/lilooutput and then open this file (which should be in your home directory) with your text editor, and post the contents here.
</edit>

I'm typing this in manually, cause I can't get my laptop on the network (that of course is the least of my concerns right now).

lilo.conf:
boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
prompt
timeout=50
message=/boot/message
lba32
default=linux

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.2_2
label=linux
read-only
root=/dev/hda5



fdisk -l>>>
Disk /dev/hda: 255 heads, 63 Sectors, 1222 cylinders

Device -- Start -- End -- Id -- System
/dev/hda1 -- 1 -- 894 -- 7 -- HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2 -- 895 -- 1222 -- 5 -- Extended
/dev/hda5 -- 895 -- 1191 -- 83 -- Linux
/dev/hda6 -- 1192 -- 1222 -- 82 -- Linux Swap

Thanks for any info you can provide...

Righto.

Edit your lilo.conf file (you'll need to su root again).
Add the following

other=/dev/hda1
label=Windows


Then save the file. And type lilo.

It should then scroll a couple of things on screen, lile linux and windows. Reboot your computer. Keep your fingers crossed, and you should be given the option of booting windows.

Good luck. Keep us posted of any difficulties.

Yowsers, thanks so much. That worked perfectly. I'm about mid way through a rather large proposal at work and was getting ill at the thought of loosing it. Thanks so much for your help...