Hi all, my rig has two hdd's on the primary ide chain (yes yes I know its time to ditch ide and use scsi or firewire) anyway...

I have WinXP on hda and setup Slack on hdb:
hdb1 /swap
hdb2 /
hdb3 /usr/local
hdb4 /home

I made a boot floppy and told Lilo to automatically configure to a floppy. (don't want to confuse my mrs. she prefers computer to go straight to WinXP yes I know its time to build a second pc as well).

Anyway when I try to boot with the Lilo floppy I get my bios telling me there's a boot virus - I figured bios doesn't know what a linux lilo floppy is so disable the virus check in bios and try again - after I hit return to boot Linux I get a lot of error messages.

Do I have to make the lilo floppy differently since Slack is on hdb drive?

Rob

What are the errors? tell us that and we can help you.

And screw scsi/firewire, we are all waiting for serial ata

Alex

Well when I boot with my Lilo disk and ignore my bios virus warnings or disable that I just get a blank screen after I hit enter at the choose Linux prompt.

edit/update

Ok, to make this a bit easier I repartitioned and reinstalled:

hdb1 swap
hdb2 /
hdb3 /home

This time I chose Lilo to install to MBR instead of floppy. My results were the same: after choosing Linux and ignoreing my bios freaking out because it doesn't like Lilo the hard drive flashes a few times and then stops and I get just a blank screen.

The 9.0 slackware disk I'm using to install with is CD1 of the purchased/retail 4 cd set. Just to give yall a little more info.

I know this info isn't much to work with but that's why I'm so baffled about it - it should work.

BTW booting from the boot floppy seems to work but something is amiss because when I look at /usr/src to see if the kernel is in there to begin a kernel recompile the only directory in there is a folder called "RPM" with subfolders with nothing in them. So something isn't setting up right.

thanks,

Rob

Actually something was right, the kernel sources may not of been installed. /usr/src/linux is not there by default since the sources for the kernel are pretty big and most n00bs don't want to be messing with them. If a n00b does then they have to get them installed themselves and learn in the process :P

Just install the kernel headers off of the slack cd using installpkg as root.

Your problem sounds like something wrong with lilo.conf so if there is any way for you to get that to us would be appreciated.

You may want to examine what the difference is between the two disks. I take it the lilo disk is a floppy with lilo booty thingy on (like a rescue disk) so what's on the other one? Is the other one the one that came with slack (on the cd) or did you create it at install time?

Alex

P.S. sorry if this is little help and slow and painful

Here's an idea ...
install the slack hd as primary master (hda)
-- you'll have to fix your fstab,
install the WXP hd as primary slave (hdb),
put lilo on the mbr of hda and configure it to boot WXP as the default boot image.
Give yourself about 5 seconds to choose slack at the lilo prompt screen, your wife can just ignore the lilo screen on boot and it will launch XP, which if you configure lilo.conf correctly will still think that it is the "C:" drive.
There have been many threads about dual booting, which you can refer to for the exact lilo.conf you will need to do this. I have done this kind of dual boot many times. In fact, here's my lilo.conf:
=============================
bash-2.05a# cat /etc/lilo.conf
# LILO configuration file
#
# Start LILO global section
boot = /dev/hda
message = /boot/boot_message.txt
prompt
timeout = 1200
# Override dangerous defaults that rewrite the partition table:
change-rules
reset
# Normal VGA console
vga = normal
default=Linux
# End LILO global section
# DOS bootable partition config begins
other = /dev/hdb1
label = w2k
table = /dev/hdb
map-drive = 0x80
to = 0x81
map-drive = 0x81
to = 0x80
# DOS bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /boot/bzImage-2.4.20-hrt-005
root = /dev/hda3
label = 2.4.20-hrt
read-only
# Linux bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /boot/bzImage-2.4.20-1
root = /dev/hda3
label = Linux-2.4.20-1
read-only
# Linux bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /boot/bzImage-2.4.18-2
root = /dev/hda3
label = Linux-mtd
read-only
# Linux bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /boot/bzImage-2.4.18-3
root = /dev/hda3
label = Linux
read-only
# Linux bootable partition config ends
bash-2.05a#
===========================
HTH,
-bbeers

Just a quick addition to the above:
my slack partitions are
hda1 /boot
hda2 swap
hda3 /
hdb1 /c
so, make mods to match your setup, before copying the lilo.conf above, (I think you said hdx2 was your /)
and obviously you have wxp not w2k, but should be close.
Also, if no default line in lilo.conf,
first image will be default.

-bbeers

>>Is the other one the one that came with slack (on the cd) or did you create it at install time?

Hi Alex. Both floppies (Lilo & Boot disk) are 3.5"s made during install process.

>> /usr/src/linux is not there by default since the sources for the kernel are pretty big and most n00bs don't want to be messing with them.

Okies, 8.1 installed em there but maybe that's because I always d/loaded the 2.4.20 kernel right away using Lynx as my first step after install was completed. No matter, I'll get em installed as you suggested and I'll see if I can extract my lilo.conf to a floppy, bring it up in windoz and paste here.

thx,
Rob