I have a lilo question. With Slackware 10.2 currently installed on my machine, I am booting to the OS with a boot floppy.
The system dual boots with XP on hda and Slackware installed on hdb. More specifically, hdb is partitioned so that hdb1 is /boot, hdb2 is /, and hdb3 is a swap partition.
I would like to use XP's NTbootloader to handle the boot choices. So, my question is, since I have a boot partition, should I install lilo on the boot partition and edit NTbootloader to point to lilo on the boot partition? Or, would it be wiser to install lilo on the root partition with NTbootloader edited to point to the root partition? Thank you for any helpful advise.

i think you're better off just installing lilo, or even better grub (in both cases meaning to the MBR). but even lilo is much better than any windows loader. if you ever wanted to switch back you could easily just reinstall the windows bootloader (but why would anyone want to?).

The reason I have chosen to use NtLoader for this installation is that there have been a good deal of reports regarding the new Linux Kernel version and XP partition table discrepancies.
Some report not being able to boot Linux, XP, or both due to partition table errors.
Therefore, I decided to play it safe and simply edit the boot.ini file. After deciding not to install Lilo in the mbr, I am not certain if Lilo should be installed in boot partition of hdb or the root partition of hdb. What is the procedure followed by NT bootloader as it turns the boot process over to the Linux drive?

read this guide:
http://www.littlewhitedog.com/content-52.html

its for win2000, but it should work for xp.

trust me: it shall be simpler to install lilo in hdb's root partition (which should be also marked as a boot partition) than using that ntloader crap. It doesn't have to be in MBR, unless it doesn't work other way. I have configured lilo dualboot in three diferent systems (a PC and a laptop at home, and the one I use at the office) and it's really easy and understandable. Don't know for the NTloader thing, but I'm sure it won't be easier than lilo.

Actually it's pretty easy to use NT bootloader (not as easy as installing LILO to the MBR in the first place, though)

check this out, it's how i setup my system, this is a very straightforward howto, focused on Red Hat, but works on Slackware too, just skip the RedHat installation part

http://www.tprthai.net/bootmgr.htm

Regards

Thanks very much for your suggestions and the links to the information for managing the boot loader. I will read the information that you provided carefully and proceed with the install of lilo. I will post the results upon completion.
It is a pleasure to be working with Linux.

Success, I read over the suggestions and material that you provided. From that information, I decided that it was necessary to wipe the second hard drive, change the partition scheme, and reinstall.

Instead of creating a /boot partition, I created a / (root) partition within the first 1024 cylinders. This move might or might not have made a difference. During the install, the choice was made to take the expert route and install Lilo in the root partition.

Upon the completion of the install, the PC was booted to Linux with the boot floppy. The dd if=/dev/hdb1 bs=512 count=1 of=/mnt/bootsek.lin was used to copy the Linux boot sector to a floppy. Next, this file was copied to the XP partition, with a line in the boot.ini file to direct the bootup process to the file then to Lilo on the second hard drive.

With the above change, attempts to boot Linux without the boot floppy failed. Got an error L 99 99 99 99 99 ... There is a good deal of information about these error codes posted throuhout the internet, which helps narrow the focus to a given area.

Changes to /etc/lilo.conf and re-running /sbin/lilo did not appear to help.

Finally, I changed the /etc/lilo.conf file to its original configuration, ran /sbin/lilo, cd to /boot, and entered the following command:
dd if=/dev/hdb1 bs=512 count=1bootsect.lnx, Next, I entered:
mcopy bootsect.lnx /mnt/floppy. Then, bootsect.lnx file was copied to hda1. The line,
C:\bootsect.lnx = "Linux" was added to the end of the boot.ini file.

Upon restart a choice between XP an Linux was offered. This time by selecting Linux, the Slackware Linux OS booted successfully.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions and direction.

Regards,
Nate

I'm glad to know it finally worked!!