I currently have Windows xp and Slackware dualbooted for various reasons. I want to re-install windows xp because it has been acting weird lately (various crashing). Now here comes the question:

Most likely the Windows XP installation will write over the MBR (where I installed lilo). How would I re-install LILO back into the MBR? Bootdisk and execute 'lilo'?

Thanks for taking your time to read this.

create a lilo diskette so that it can boot to your slackware installation.
Then install XP.
After XP is done, boot your diskette.
Once logged into slackware from the diskette, re-run lilo overwrite the MBR

Ok thanks.

So, it's fine to write LILO to the MBR? The last few times I tried this, it comes up with 'Invalid partition table' and sits there....Or was that writing to the superblock...? It was one of them and it didn't work...Should I try writing to the MBR next time? What's the option for that? Just the superblock (I think that's what one of them is...)...?

mainva | aptigo | JTD out

Personally, if you going to dual boot it is easier with grub. Lilo can still do it, and its all about how you partition your hard drive. I've always written to the MBR with every distro I've played with. I love slack, so I've had to learn a little about lilo, but I've dual booted Slack/XP before so it is possible. The warning here is, DO NOT upgrade disks to dynamic inside of windows. You will totally screw up your machine.

Post if you have any errors.

hey I may sound stupid, but I'm new to useinginstalling linux and I want to install a dual boot of XP, and Slackware, how to do I do this without killing XP? like is there a resize or something? I tried Fedora but it won't install and nobody is replying to me....?

there is a tools called ntresize. Probably on sourceforge.net. That will resize the partitions. Slack will likely overwrite the masterboot record, so you'll have to manually edit lilo.conf to add the option to boot windows. Since I don't use lilo, I can' help there, but the resize utility will get you started.

Good luck

oh okay, thanks, I'll give it a try, anyone else able to help in this department? drop me an e-mail at theethan77@gmail.com -Ethan

I guess you cannot boot to the slackware cd, and re-run lilo.
i only ask because my floppy drive is not working.
obviously i hope not to re-install winxp, slackware is used by me, my girlfriend just uses xp.

here's the thing, I don't know what lilo is, nobody tells me this stuff, so what is lilo? and so I should try like a boot for the foppy or another drive?

LILO stands for LInux LOader if i remember correctly. Its a bootloader utility which you can configure to your needs.

Take a look at these howto documents:
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LILO.html
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Linux+WinNT.html

For more complete information.

Ethan, if you are still looking for help then you may be interested in searching your town for a Linux Users Group. People who come to ours can bring their PC and we install linux while they watch so they can get an understanding of what is happening. There is at least one guy in our User Group for the major distros and if someone asks about one of the smaller obscure distro, we can usually manage.

oh that's awesome, I'll look into that... maybe I could get them to get our LANparty back up like we ahd planned this year for our high school it was going to be huge, but eh it crapped out on networking.

anywoo thanks, uh I'll check that out ;D

Hi Everyone!
I have a dual boot system (Win98/Slack 10.1). I reinstalled a Win98 -> WinXP, but I forgot creating boot floppy ("mkbootdisk") to my Linux system. The question is "How can I put lilo -> mbr ?"

/hda1 - WinXP
/hda5 - Slack 10.1

I try with Knoppix, rewrite "/mnt/hda5/etc/lilo.conf" to boot record, but i couldn't it make, because sends me back an error message. Have you guy's any idea, how can I make it done?

I try these commands in Knoppix root konsole:
root#/mnt/hda5/sbin/lilo
root#/mnt/hda5/sbin/liloconfig
root#/sbin/lilo
root#/sbin/liloconfig

I thank you for your attention!
Best wishes!

master_boy

Yeap, init with Knoopix like you did, and mount the harddisk, then use: chroot /mnt/hda5/
and run: lilo
(or liloconfig)