Hi there! In my laptop I have windows 7 and slackware installed, and today I crashed my windows boot partition. So I decided to fix it from linux but I also crashed lilo boot manager. Now I managed to repair the windows boot sector with an install dvd, but now I only have windows 7 on boot. Is there a way to reinstall lilo so I can have back both systems at start up?

You can chroot into your Slackware installation and reinstall lilo from there. You can use the Slackware install media to do this, or just about any live system out there.

You should be able to boot from the Slackware install disc, chroot in and re-run lilo. That should be enough to reinstall it to the mbr.

//edit: gazumped...

I was actually just reading about this today, the link on slackdocs is here:

http://docs.slackware.com/howtos:sla...oot_from_media

Thank you rkfb! In fact I was doing chroot procedure for the first time and it's very cool. I followed commands from this link: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Change_Root I thought archlinux is very symilar with slackware. The point is I couldn't succeed to reconfigure lilo, though I changed /etc/lilo.conf "boot = /dev/sdax" becouse this is what I changed when I crashed lilo. I executed "lilo" command and I had 3 warnings. After reboot, windows started again. I think I will follow the chroot instructions from your link since my system is not arch, but slackware.

When on slackware chroot run "pkgtool" and re-run the lilo script, it will reinstall it on the MBR. Then, re-run the lilo commands.

I have this warnings: "LBA32 addressing assumed"; "Unable to determine video adapter in use in the present system."; Video adapter does not support VESA BIOS extensions needed for display of 256 colors. Boot loader will fall back to TEXT only operation." I had this 3 warnings before, and lilo didn't start. My boot partition is /dev/sda7 ext 4 but windows mbr is in /dev/sfa1 which is ntfs. In lilo.conf I choose /dev/sda7 for boot. What should I do?

I also get those 3 errors every time I install lilo from chroot. Is your Slack boot partition marked active?

Thanks a lot moisespredo. I had no ideea I could install scripts when chroot with pkgtool. Everything it's back to normal now. Thanks again to everyone who answered me in this thread. Now I learned a few new tricks

You are welcome

@JackHair By the way after repairing lilo from chroot--->pkgtool. I looked at /etc/lilo.conf file and the correct boot path is /dev/sda. I belive if I would have tryed to change it for the first time when I executed "lilo" maybe I would have got the same result... I don't know, but executing the lilo install script from pkgtool, I belive it's the right choice.

Windows repair thing probably erased lilo off MBR so re-running the script was needed.

I'm sure of that, becouse I had this problem before and I was reading somewhere, that windows interpret every linux boot manager as a virus.
But I think I had to do it that way, in order not to lose windows system. So I tryed to "fix" windows boot loader from linux and that's how I crashed lilo and the only solution for me was to repair windows boot loader with windows install dvd, and after that.... your solution Thanks again.

I never use pkgtool to install lilo, don't want to install lilo on /dev/sda (my Windows drive). I do it by hand after pkgtool finished it's job. I have lilo installed on the MBR of /dev/sdd.

This is the reason I do the above.

@JackHair I tryed to install lilo without using pkgtool but I failed. I think it requires advanced knowledge or something, but don't be so harsh, after all when a beginner first install slackware will also install lilo in mbr.. /dev/sda by default, and until I crushed windows boot loader with some kind of antyspyware application I had no problem booting in both systems. Even though, with a crushed windows I could have boot slackware. So, if it works and if the team who develop the way to install lilo in slackware in /dev/sda think it's ok, then it's ok for a beginner like me either. I don't know if it counts but my windows boot partition is /dev/sda1 and lilo is installed in partition table /dev/sda. Perhaps there is a difference.