LinuxQuestions.org - unable to dual boot with new windows partition

I installed Windows on a new partition for gaming. It erased the bootloader of course, and so I reinstalled Lilo and booted back into Slackware. Everything's peachy at this point.

Then I decided I want to play a game, so I rebooted and start the Windows partition. It just sat there saying Loading Windows. So I restarted again and booted into Slackware (which boots just like it should) so I could run lilo because I assumed something messed up. It gives me the following error:

Code:

Fatal: First sector of /dev/sda2 doesn't have a valid boot signature

My partition table looks like this (output from cfdisk):

Code:

      Name                  Flags                Part Type          FS Type                      [Label]                    Size (MB)

 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

      sda1                                        Primary            ext4                                                    115346.51          *

      sda2                  Boot                  Primary            HPFS/NTFS/exFAT                                          372650.28          *

                                                  Pri/Log            Free Space                                                    0.86          *

      sda3                                        Primary            swap                                                      12110.23          *

sda1 is Slackware, and sda2 is Windows. My /home is a separate harddrive (sdb1).

I tried toggling the boot flag on the Windows partition, but it does the same thing whether its shown as bootable or not.

Before I reinstalled Lilo, the Windows bootloader would load it just fine.

my lilo.conf:

Code:

# LILO configuration file

# generated by 'liloconfig'

#

# Start LILO global section

lba32 # Allow booting past 1024th cylinder with a recent BIOS

# Append any additional kernel parameters:

append=" vt.default_utf8=1"

boot = /dev/sda



# Boot BMP Image.

# Bitmap in BMP format: 640x480x8

bitmap = /boot/slack.bmp

# Menu colors (foreground, background, shadow, highlighted

# foreground, highlighted background, highlighted shadow):

bmp-colors = 255,0,255,0,255,0

# Location of the option table: location x, location y, number of

# columns, lines per column (max 15), "spill" (this is how many

# entries must be in the first column before the next begins to

# be used. We don't specify it here, as there's just one column.

bmp-table = 60,6,1,16

# Timer location x, timer location y, foreground color,

# background color, shadow color.

bmp-timer = 65,27,0,255



# Standard menu.

# Or, you can comment out the bitmap menu above and

# use a boot message with the standard menu:

#message = /boot/boot_message.txt



# Wait until the timeout to boot (if commented out, boot the

# first entry immediately):

prompt

# Timeout before the first entry boots.

# This is given in tenths of a second, so 600 for every minute:

timeout = 1200

# Override dangerous defaults that rewrite the partition table:

change-rules

reset

# Normal VGA console

vga = normal

# Ask for video mode at boot (time out to normal in 30s)

#vga = ask

# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x64k

#vga=791

# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x32k

#vga=790

# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x256

#vga=773

# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x64k

#vga=788

# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x32k

#vga=787

# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x256

#vga=771

# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x64k

#vga=785

# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x32k

#vga=784

# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x256

#vga=769

# End LILO global section

# Windows bootable partition config begins

other = /dev/sda2

label = Windows

table = /dev/sda

# Windows bootable partition config ends

# Linux bootable partition config begins

image = /boot/vmlinuz

root = /dev/root

label = Linux

read-only

# Linux bootable partition config ends

So anyway, this is everything I could think of that could matter. Is there something wrong in any of this that I can fix to be able to properly boot both Slackware and Windows?

thanks for any help!