I can't boot my computer when I'm installing lilo to root (single boot to Linux with boot partition set to root with cfdisk). This should be the safest installation according to the documentation. Only MBR works.

It is also impossible to install a new lilo from the command line with /sbin/lilo as described in the Slackbook. I get error msgs like;

part_nowrite: read:: Input/output error
Fatal: volid read error

Using liloconfig is the same, - tells me that lilo can't be installed and that I need to boot from floppy, but apparently nothing has changed. I can still boot from HD.

The only thing that works is to install Linux from scratch, selecting automatic lilo config, and put it in MBR.

Any ideas?

I had a similar problem with lilo and liloconfig. I also tried "lilo -M /dev/hda", but it didn't seem to do anything except wipe the MBR altogether so I HAD to use my boot floppy (good job I had it) .
Try running lilo with the "-v 5" option... for more details. When I did this, I remember seeing something referring to my usb flash storage card (I think) which was connected at the time... I took it out, ran lilo again and whadaya know, it worked.

Yup - there it was! Unplug the USB Flash device and lilo works. Go figger!