no boot loader
 

If I decided no to load LILO or any boot loader for that matter, does that mean that I must boot from a bootdisk?

unless you tell you current boot loader (e.g. if you're using the windows nt boot loader) then yes. but you can always install one later.

Or you can use loadlin.exe, a dos executable that can load a linux kernel (but it must be run from ms-dos mode). You will also need the current kernel image (usually /bin/vmlinuz*)

Well, what I did was install slack on a bare system, no other os at all. I downloaded a bunch of distros to see if I could install the more advanced ones and when it came time to configure LILO it gave me the option no not use it, so I thought that maybe I only use LILO when using the system as a dual boot one. But when I booted up I got the non-system disk error message.

By the way, I was suprised at how easy Slackware was to install (well with out this part but that was my fault :))