I'm having problems with Lilo. this also pertains somewhat to my thread about Fdisk not reporting correct hdd size. I tried using the expert functions to set the info for the drive, but then the installer doesn't like this, it won't/can't create the files on the new drive when I tried to install, so I set the drive back to it's former incorrect settings. After complete reinstall, now Lilo doesn't work. I get about 10 lines of nothing but 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 when lilo used to come up before I noticed the hard drive was registering wrong. I DON'T have access to a windows or dos boot disk to reformat the MBR. After talking to the friend I got the drive form(traded equal size drive for this one, because his computer wouldn't work with it, I had to hook it up to my Dos drive(which is now dead) and fdisk it.) I found out before it screwed up on him, it had Win 95 or 98 he couldn't remember which. If anyone knows where I can download a dos boot disk that will let me fdisk this drive, I would greatly appreciate it.

By the way, this is a Linux only two drive system. one disk 4.3 Gig(the one that is not reading right in fdisk) as root with a swap partition and an 850 Meg drive mounted as /home

"If anyone knows where I can download a dos boot disk that will let me fdisk this drive, I would greatly appreciate it."

You can fix things up using a Linux rescue CD or Linux rescue floppy. the Slackware install CD has a rescue mode. Also you could use knoppix:

http://www.knoppix.org/

or tomsrtbt:

http://www.toms.net/rb/

___________________________________
Be prepared. Create a LifeBoat CD.
http://users.rcn.com/srstites/LifeBo...home.page.html

Steve Stites

The answer is so obvious that you're going to think I'm making fun of you, but seriously, go to:

http://www.bootdisk.com/

And now, I will make fun of you:

Try Google, It's amazing what you can find!

Enjoy!
--- Cerbere

Jailbait,
I cain't boot from a CD rom, my mobo/bios doesn't support it, so that rules out the recovery CD and knoppix.

Cerbere,
Thanks, I'll check there after I get done here. And as for google, I tried to search for "dos boot disk" and "boot disk" and all that I got was several thousand hits that explained how to use one, or how to make one if you already had a working system, but no where that I could download a generic one that would let me do what I needed.

Another question, is there a way I can fix the MRB with linux fdisk or another similar program for linux? If there is, that would also work.

Thanks for all your help.

I have two suggestions that may fix your problem.

1. You may have an old BIOS which cannot access your entire hard drive. This only matters with the first stage of lilo. If this is your problem then you can fix it by making /boot into a separate, small partition at the beginning of your hard drive.

2. You may have minor configuration problems with your hard drives. Lilo is much more sensitive to such problems than grub. Try installing grub instead of lilo.

___________________________________
Be prepared. Create a LifeBoat CD.
http://users.rcn.com/srstites/LifeBo...home.page.html

Steve Stites

Jailbait,

I do have an old bios, when I auto search my hard drives, it comes up as a 2.1 gig hard drive and is really slow to boot, but if I enter the correct values, it works fine. My problem with LILO is that it won't start in the first place. It used to run just fine with the bios setting set for the correct size hard drive, but then after having to fix another problem by reinstalling, it wouldn't work, I suspect it was corrupted MBR, I haven't finished reinstall yet to verify.

Thanks for the suggestions and ideas.

Here is a thread that explains the lilo problems with large disks and old BIOS.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...threadid=68530

Of the various solutions I suggest that you create a small boot partition at the beginning of the hard drive.

___________________________________
Be prepared. Create a LifeBoat CD.
http://users.rcn.com/srstites/LifeBo...home.page.html

Steve Stites

tried running dos fdisk /mbr and then reinstalling Linux and lilo, but that didn't work, Lilo still wont start from the hard drive. the computer will go through the bios startup and hard drive recognition process then when lilo should start instead of the lilo box and promt all I get is a series of this
40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40

about 1/4 screen of that junk. I haven't noticed any error messages in it or anything so I don't know what is wrong. Any ideas on how I can fix this would be appreciated.

I'm having a problem installing Slackware 9.0 in my machine.

I have a dual boot with Windows XP, and had installed LILO with Mandrake 8.2 before. Everything was OK.

However, now that I tried to install Slackware, the LILO installation gives an error whether I try to install it in the MBR or superblock. When I boot the computer, i get a lot of 'L40 40 40 ...' messages, and the computer fails to start.

The partition where I installed Slackware is not the first in the drive.

When I started fdisk, I got a warning message concerning the number of cylinders in the drive. Does this have something to do with the problem? Its a 40Gb drive, and a PIII-450.

I had to revert to the Mandrake 8.2 LILO ...


Any help will be deeply appreciated.

if u still have the lilo.conf file of the working lilo, could u paste it here pls. ty.