LILO problem
 

I'm having some problems with Lilo, I have Windows 98 and Slackware 10 running on my computer. Here is my current Lilo:

lba32
message = /boot/boot_message.txt
append = "hde=noprobe hdg=noprobe"

boot = /dev/hda # or your root partition
delay = 700 # delay, in tenth of a second (so you can interact)
vga = 1 # optional. Use "vga=1" to get 80x50
#linear # try "linear" in case of geometry problems.

default = Slack

image = /boot/vmlinuz # your zImage file
root = /dev/hda2 # your root partition
label = Slack # or any fancy name
#read-only # mount root read-only

other = /dev/hda1 # your dos partition, if any
table = /dev/hda # the current partition table
label = Windows # or any non-fancy name

When my bios finishes starting up and the time comes for Lilo to do its thing, all that happens is this is displayed: LILO-22.5.9 and the computer stops responding. Any thoughts?

1. If you urgently need to get into Windows:
a. Boot from Win98 CD
b. Choose DOS mode, with CDROM support
c. do fdisk /fixmbr (or /mbrfix, forgot aalready...)

This should allow Win98 to boot again.

Then, at a leasurly pace, we can try to fix the Lilo.

Just boot from Slack CD#1 again, skip all the install stuff and go directly to "Lilo" section. Try to redo it. If Lilo still doesn't work after - many many reasons why:
- Old BIOS = /dev/hda2/boot is beyond lilo's reach.
- kernel doesn't have the right stuff compiled in.
- many other isssues with geometry.

Tell us, where your /boot folder is located? with the rest of the stuff on /root, which it on /dev/hda2 ?

Since making that post I've found a few things out, when I thought it had crashed, it was actually waiting 700 tenths of a second, but not giving me any choice. So when I changed "delay = 700" to "delay = 10", it loaded my default in one second.
So really now my problem is that I can't get a choice, I can get into both OS'es ok by using my slack boot disk and just changing the default selection in my lilo.conf.
As for your questions, my /boot and /root are both on hda2, my windows is on hda1, and I think my swap is on hda3.
I can't see anything wrong with my configuration that would cause it to automaticly jump to the default choice, maybe someone with a bit more lilo experience than me can spot a mistake somewhere...

To know your hdd layout type: fdisk -l
Now let's change your lilo.conf
Basically, you're missing prompt line that will wait for your input. Leave read-only for linux partition because that will allow fsck to run, your partition will be mounted read-write after that.

Thank you, that works perfectly:D

once you get into Linux, do:
lilo -v
and look for output. See if it rejects Slack entry for any reason.