lilo dual boot
 

I have Slack 9.1 (2.6.7 kernel) with XP dual boot. I had to re-install XP and Lilo has been overwritten. So it just boots XP and does not give me LILO.

XP is in /dev/hda1 and Slack is in /dev/hda2. How can I get my LILO prompt back without re-installing Slack?

Boot with your Slack boot floppy, or if you didn't make one, boot with
the Slack CD1. At the boot prompt type:
bare.i root=/dev/hda? noinitrd ro (where ? is the / partition)
and when your system is back up, su to root and run lilo - don't even
worry about running X, just do it at the text login, then reboot.

Just use one of the Slackware install cd's and boot from that. I don't remember the command off the top of my head, but when you get the prompt when it boots from the cd, the command is right above there. Just replace the /dev/hda1 or whatever that have in there with /dev/hda2. Once you get booted up just run the /sbin/lilo command and you should be good to go.

It's also good practice to create a boot floppy or install a copy of your bootloader to a floppy, just in case the mbr gets messed up.

I did that and /sbin/lilo gives

"Partition 2 on /dev/hda is not marked active"
"Added DOS*"
"Added Linux"

Well, does it boot properly?

Edit: MS-DOS and Windows use a special flag to indicate whether a primary partition is "active" or not. Active partitions can be booted from. Only primary partitions can be marked as active, and there can be only one active partition per hard disk. The "active" flag has no meaning for other operating systems.

Yes, it does boot properly. I guess I need to use fdisk to make the partition active. But I guess they don't have the 'a' switch. Out of luck?

Really, it's no need with Linux to mark a partition active.
That's just an infomational message.