slackware64 14.1: not able to install LILO to MBR; not able to boot from USB drive.

dcsst28 · 11-17-2013, 08:00 PM

Hello,

I just installed slackware64 14.1 today, and during configuration, LILO failed to install to the MBR. Luckily (or so I thought), I had created a USB boot drive. When I rebooted my machine with the USB boot drive in, I get an error message saying something about this is not a bootable drive, please insert bootable floppy... I do not remember the exact text.

So, first:
Why did LILO not install to the MBR?

second:
Why did the USB boot drive not boot linux?

System:
Lenovo Thinkpad T530
Core i7-3520M @ 2900 MHz
16 GB RAM
Windows 7 Professional installed on first half of drive.
slackware64 14.1 installed on second half of drive.
/SYSTEM_DRV == /dev/sda1 (bootable)
/Windows7_OS == /dev/sda2
/Lenovo_Recovery == /dev/sda3
/ == /dev/sda5 (bootable)
SWAP == /dev/sda6

Previously had slackware64 14 installed with Windows 7 Professional dual boot system and LILO on MBR. Same partitioning scheme as above.

Thank you for reading.

dcsst28 · 11-17-2013, 10:03 PM

Thank you to everyone who read this. I solved the problem, though. I used the installation DVD to get to the setup program. Then I reconfigured lilo.conf and installed it to the MBR. I think the reason it was not installing to the MBR before is because there were two partitions listed as bootable in the Windows section. I could be wrong, though. That is all I saw that changed when I reconfigured it.

Anyway,
Thanks.