Hi everyone,

I just upgraded to Slack 10.0 from 9.1 following the instructions in UPGRADE.TXT. As per that document I ran lilo and got the following error message:

root@slack:~# lilo
Fatal: VolumeID read error: sector 0 of /dev/sda not readable

I'm not sure what this means since linux is on /dev/hda4 on my system and /dev/sda is not mentioned anywhere in /etc/lilo.conf.

For more info I ran lilo -v and got:

root@slack:~# lilo -v
LILO version 22.5.9, Copyright (C) 1992-1998 Werner Almesberger
Development beyond version 21 Copyright (C) 1999-2004 John Coffman
Released 08-Apr-2004 and compiled at 00:18:50 on May 21 2004.

Warning: LBA32 addressing assumed
Reading boot sector from /dev/hda4
Fatal: VolumeID read error: sector 0 of /dev/sda not readable


I'm not sure what any of this means and so I don't want to reboot for fear of not being able to boot linux. Anyone have any advice - are my fears ungrounded, or is this something I should fix before shutting down??

Thanks,
geomatt



And here's the uncommented parts of my /etc/lilo.conf in case it helps diagnose what's going on here:

# Start LILO global section
boot="/dev/hda4"
vga="773"
image="/boot/vmlinuz"
root="/dev/hda4"
label="linux"
read-only # Non-UMSDOS filesystems should be mounted read-only for checking
# Linux bootable partition config ends
append="hdc=ide-scsi"

hi

what i think ur
boot="/dev/hda4"

should be
boot=/dev/hda

i have this entry in my lilo.conf

keep us posted , on what do u get ????

regards

gaurav

masand,
Thanks for the reply. The reason it is hda4 is because I am dual booting with windows xp and my linux lives on hda4. I tried getting rid of the quotes, but it didn't have any effect.

I do have some new info that may be helpful. Googling on the error message got me the advice that I should add the line

disk=/dev/sda inaccessible

to /etc/lilo.conf. I did this and then ran lilo and got:

root@slack:~# lilo -v
LILO version 22.5.9, Copyright (C) 1992-1998 Werner Almesberger
Development beyond version 21 Copyright (C) 1999-2004 John Coffman
Released 08-Apr-2004 and compiled at 00:18:50 on May 21 2004.

Warning: LBA32 addressing assumed
Reading boot sector from /dev/hda4
Warning: bypassing VolumeID scan of drive flagged INACCESSIBLE: /dev/sda
Using MENU secondary loader
Calling map_insert_data

Boot image: /boot/vmlinuz -> vmlinuz-ide-2.4.26
Added linux *

Writing boot sector.
/boot/boot.0304 exists - no boot sector backup copy made.


Seems better. But I am still worried about booting with warnings from lilo. Maybe I am being paranoid but I had a bit of a scare a couple weeks ago with lilo and now I'm not taking any chances.

geomatt

hi there
what i think is that u need to specify the boot partion xclusively when u have ur /boot on different drive
i think u should give it a try

try changing
boot=/dev/hda

this is for the lilo to tell that ot ned to boot from the hard disk /dev/hda
here is my lilo.conf

-----------------------------------------

# LILO configuration file
# generated by 'liloconfig'
#
# Start LILO global section
# For CD-Writer
#append="hdb=ide-scsi"

# For BMP Boot Image
bitmap=/boot/ins64a.bmp
bmp-colors=14,11,;15,9,0
bmp-table=21,287p,2,4,175p
bmp-timer=73,29,12,8,0
install=/boot/boot-bmp.b

#menu-scheme=Wb
boot = /dev/hda
prompt
timeout = 1200
#VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x64k
vga = 788

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.3gm8
label=2.6.3gm8
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.6.3gm8.img
read-only
append="root=/dev/hda4"



other = /dev/hda1
label = windows
table = /dev/hda
# DOS bootable partition config ends

-------------------------------------------------

i have removed the other entries

regards

Hey thanks for the reply.
I ended up doing a clean new installation of Slack 10.0 since I had lots of other issues to deal with. So far so good. Now I gotta try reinstalling some stuff that is not in the standard Slack distro.
Cheers,
geomatt

hey

good that u up and working
but u should get to the root of the problem so that it can be avoided in the future,that help u learn

and keep us posted too ,if u get it

regards

Makes no difference, I have the same problem and i have:

boot=/dev/hda

Lilo still complains about being unable to read sector 0 of sda (which is quite normal as the sda it's referring to is a removable usb harddrive that is kilometers away from the machine at the moment, I would be amazed if it would be accessible). I will try

disk=/dev/sda inaccessible

trick in lilo.conf as soon as I get home. What I do not understand is why lilo is so worried about the absense of sda since the drive in question has absolutely nothing to do whatsoever with the boot process. This is by far the most stupid bug (or misfeature) I've ever run into.

As far as I know, the message:

Warning: LBA32 addressing assumed

is harmless.

Whoops, previous posting seems to have been two years ago Anyway Lilo still does this.