I've been trying to set up lilo for the day and seems it's never going to work. This is my current set up:

boot=/dev/hda
default=Windows
timeout=50
lba32
prompt

image=/boot/vmlinuz
label=Linux
root=/dev/hdb1
read-only

other=/dev/hda1
label=Windows


I have WindowsXP installed on my 'hda1' and linux installed at 'hdb1'.

Lilo screen comes up but when i boot into WindowsXP, i get blue error screen. When i boot into linux i get Kernel Panic.

Did i set something wrong here?! It looks perfectly fine to me.


Also is that 'lba32' for Windows 98? can i use that for NTFS too?

I know most of you are tierd of me asking so many questions. I understand.

If you have XP and Linux Dual boot lilo set up, may i just have a sample config text for your lilo? I need someone to compare to see what's wrong with mine.

Thanks.

I think I will have one in a day or two, but that doesn't help much. Maybe try removing lba32? Adding 'change-rules/reset'? Those are the only possibly significant differences I see. (Win2K, though, rather than XP.) I edited out the commented stuff to make it shorter and the append line to what it should read instead of my typo. (Gotta fix that and the timeout.)

And what's your Linux distro, btw?

append="hdd=ide-scsi"
boot = /dev/hda
default = Slack
message = /boot/boot_message.txt
prompt
timeout = 1200
change-rules
reset
vga = 773
other = /dev/hda1
label = NT
table = /dev/hda
image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/hdb1
label = Slack
read-only
image = /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.18-bf2.4
root = /dev/hda5
label = Debian
read-only

Thank you for your reply! I feel hopeless trying to figure this out by my self.

I have Mandrake 9.1.

I can't even boot into Windows, that's making me worried alot.

Ah, okay. Well, I do remember that, while I got Mandrake up, it had some odd things in its lilo.conf. I believe it was expecting an init.rd somewhere in there. I don't know if that was just weird with my installation or part of the normal process of Mandrake (or even if I'm misremembering). But that's what may be wrong with the Mandrake. A *lot* of Mandrake users out there so, even if they don't dual-boot with XP, somebody should be able to help with that.

As far as the Windows, that *is* worrisome because it sounds like you're *getting* to Windows and the lilo.conf looks good there, so it seems like something could be wrong with Windows. There's this kind of fake boot disk - a sort of way to boot XP from floppy - did you happen to make one of those and have you tried getting around LILO just to check on Windows? Or do you have an actual install CD (I have these fake 'recovery CDs' from the OEM)? because you might be able to run that rescue thing XP has.

And I understand - some things I've tried to figure out - if you don't know what's *wrong* you don't know how to try to *fix* it. Maybe something in there will help or somebody else will come along with more information.

Strangly when i boot XP using lilo, the Windows seems to be loading fine, until i get this message say "scan check not found" and it goes into blue error screen with bunch of numbers and it freezes. When i try go into Linux (mandrake) using lilos, it loads and suddenly it says "Kernel Panic" and my Cap Lock and Scroll Lock light flashes.

I am currently booting into Linux using a boot disk. That seems to work fine. I do have Win98 boot disk. Do you know the dos command that i can use to start up XP?

I want to try Grub, but it won't save it's setting even under "root" environement. I thinik Lilo is keeping Grub from taking over it's job. Is there anyway i can clear out Lilo so i can start fresh using Grub?

Thanks alot for your help!

I some how managed to get Grub working. I don't get it with Linux, it has mind of it's own. It works only when it wants to, lol.

Anyways, i encountered the same problem. I used recovery and now on XP system.


Edit: Grub now boots into XP flawlessly. However when i try booting into Linux i get "Kernel Panic: init not found".

Any idea what 'init' is?

Yeah - init is - well, the program that initializes everything. I'm probably wrong but I think the kernel loads and then looks for init, runs init, and then init runs all your runlevel scripts to get your devices recognized and modules loaded and so on. I'm kind of guessing here but I think that means your filesystem isn't where LILO expects it to be.

And you've got *both* LILO and grub going? That's probably an issue there. I've never used grub.

As far as if you want to start all over with your boot sector, the Win98 disk should have fdisk and 'fdisk /mbr' will clean it out. I don't think you can start XP with a 98 disk though. As far as 'scan check not found' I'm not sure what the problem is there. If grub's booting XP now, it must just be XP being touchy. Nothing fundamentally wrong with it.

I have been able to solve XP problem Some how my hda1 got invisable. I used Boot Magic recovery disk i made eariler and was able to bring it back. Now my grub can boot XP. YAY!

As for Linux, well i'm looking in this boot directory and pondering which one is the init file grub is asking for.

Is this what you would call init file? : 'vmlinuz'

As for running Grub and Lilo running both at once, Lilo dosn't seems to be seen when i turned on Grub. I don't know if it automatically disabled Lilo, but there was no option i could use to kill Lilo. So i'm hopping it was smart enough to know to disable it self.

No, init is the name of the actual program in /sbin. At least I assume that's what it means when it says 'init not found' - /sbin should always be on your root fs so it basically means 'where the hell's your root fs? I can't start this'. vmlinuz is your kernel image. But what I'm wondering about is whether Linux is actually on hdb1.

What does 'fdisk -l' and 'cat /etc/mtab' say when you're booted in Linux, again?

I feel like I'm missing the boat here somewhere and I need to crash. Hopefully somebody else can pick up from here.

digiot, the problem has been solved . I inspected the Linux Boot disk to see what it had that my grub didn't. Idea came to me because it was strange why my boot disk can boot linux, but grub couldn't.

Turns out the boot disk looks for the "/root" in hdb2, not hdb1 as suspected. It's strange tho, all my linux stuff is in hdb1. Anyways, i reconfigure grub to look for root under hdb2 and to my suprised no more kernel panic.

Simply amazing. I must have rebooted my system over 300 times trying to get this to work.

digiot, thx for all your help!

As for any newbies like me, use Grub. I find it much more solid and consistant with system boot settings.

Hey - glad you got it working! See? I *was* tired. First thing I do is find something that works and compare it to what doesn't but I didn't even think 'look at the boot disk'. Argh.

As far as grub, I dunno - I've always used LILO and it works for me - and grub's got those goofy conf files *g* - but whatever works for you is the key.

Great tip!

I'm so glad i don't have to use this slow floppy anymore. Phew.