Slackware Won't Boot
 

I just installed Slackware 10.1on my IBM T42 Thinkpad (2379DXU) and it will not boot. Intead, Windows XP boots. I did install LILO, but I installed it to the root partition, not the master boot record. Should I just install it there or can I access it somehow else? Thanks for any help.

You can boot up Slack with the cd and fix lilo with pkgtool.

The simplest way to dual-boot is to install lilo or grub to the mbr.
There is also an alternate method for cain-loading lilo through ntloader, but I would not recommend it.

Simply, set the bootable flag for your linux partition. This way, you should get the lilo menu.
But maybe you should put lilo into your mbr

Ive beem putting it on the mbr for a long time, its not as scary as it sounds. if you mess up and give up on linux, you can restore your mbr with a windows boot floppy anyway.

Don't set the bootable flag on the linux partition if you still have the XP bootloader in the MBR.
It won't help get Linux going, and XP specifically checks for this and aborts the load.

Whilst you can load Linux from boot.ini, you *really* don't want to do this with lilo.
Serious PITA.
Grub is less of a pain, but you will be much better off with one of *nix loaders.
I prefer (and always use) grub, but Pat has mandated lilo.

I used ntloader to chainload GRUB, before I realized the uselessness of this, and installed GRUB to the mbr.
To uninstall (and install the XP bootloader), in windows you can just run fdisk /mbr. (warning: this will make linux unbootable.

Here is what you need (what I used to use in my pc):

Create the following partitions on you disk (lets supose hda)

- hda1, with about 20 mb, where we will put the kernel images, for booting
- hda2, for the Win XP (do you really want this?), with the size you want
- hda3, for swap
- hda4, for /
- hda5, for your home.

Use #cfdisk to do this, and set the hda2 to be the bootable partition.

Then install you win on hda2, leaving the others partitions.
Now install your linux and, when installing, you must tell that the /boot folder will be mounted at hda1. (as well tell that /home will be at hda5, for more confort).

Then install and configure properly the LILO, editing /etc/lilo.conf and telling it to look for boot images for linux in /dev/hda.

You must tell LILO to be installed on superblock, by running #pkgtool

The windows will the setted automatically when you run the LILO setup tool (#pkgtool, when using slackware).

Good luck!

And why so? I've been doing-it for years with lilo and never had a problem. No matter what you do you still end-up with 2 bootloaders, 1 for nt and it's own world and another one for linux.

Wow, you guys went around the world to answer this one :D


SOLUTION 1:
All you have to do is re-install Lilo to root. Take a boot disk (or one of your Slackware CDs) and set the boot option in this fashion:

boot: root=/dev/hda2 (or whatever your root partition may be)

Then, as root, all you have to do is simply:

/sbin/lilo


You will see it adding your Windows and Linux partition as boot options. Afterwards, you will then need to remove the lilo boot from the root partition otherwise you will see Lilo twice when you first boot up :D

SOLUTION 2:
You can also set it to load from the NT Loader if you want like someone already suggested (and it's technically safer than installing Lilo in your /mbr), it's simple and easy (but you'll still probably want to remove that Lilo boot from your root :D):

http://www.littlewhitedog.com/content-52.html

Easy way to do this without a floppy drive, just create the file somewhere on your Windows partition if you have it mounted in Linux and your root have read/write rights to it. If not, use Explore2fs in Windows.

Because:
A) More trouble to configure, and you have to recreate the boot image each time you re-install lilo.
B) Your Linux boot is dependant on god-knows-what modifications Microsoft makes to ntloader.

Is it really more trouble than doing certain things in Linux? lol

Ah, so you are fearful of Microsoft's tactics. I'm sure when it will be unsafe to use the NT boot loader everyone will know, no need to scare some one off from using this technique for no reason but fear.

Yes. Your system will become unbootable if you forget to take boot image when you install a new kernel (before rebooting), boot into windows, and install it. This is a lot more complicated than adding a few lines to a grub configuration file. Since most distributions now automatically install kernels and make all bootloader changes, you may forget all this, and end up with an unbootable system, again.
I'm not trying to "scare some one off from using" a fabulously good technique, my point is that there are no advantrages to this technique, while there are plenty of disadvantages.
What use will it be to know you can't boot anymore?

Err, I didn't mean for everyone to get so heated about this. I simply followed Linux~Powered's directions.