I had to transfer a hard drive to another machine after
an electrical short destroyed the motherboard.
I have Slackware 13.37 installed on this hard drive with
an msdos partition table (Gparted) which will boot
properly. However, if I try to run LILO -b /dev/sdc2,
I get the partition table warning:

Warning: Ignoring entry 'boot'
Warning: LBA32 addressing assumed
Warning: /dev/sdc2 is not on the first disk
Warning: Device 0x0820: Inconsistent partition table, 2nd entry
CHS address in PT: 261:53:49 --> LBA (3949707)
LBA address in PT: 4196352 --> CHS (297:128:49)
Fatal: Either FIX-TABLE or IGNORE-TABLE must be specified
If not sure, first try IGNORE-TABLE (-P ignore)

I try to rerun LILO with LILO -b -P ignore /dev/sdc2, but
this results in a display of all switches and their use
which would indicate that my syntax is wrong.

I also ran fdisk and printed the partition table which
showed no partitions.

What is wrong here?

post your /etc/lilo.conf

Pretty simple lilo.conf; don't see how it could be the cause of the problem, although change-rules?

# LILO configuration file
# generated by 'liloconfig'
#
# Start LILO global section
# Append any additional kernel parameters:
append=" vt.default_utf8=1"
boot = /dev/sdc2

bitmap = /boot/slack.bmp
bmp-colors = 255,0,255,0,255,0
bmp-table = 60,6,1,16
bmp-timer = 65,27,0,255

prompt
timeout = 100
# Override dangerous defaults that rewrite the partition table:
change-rules
reset
vga = normal
# End LILO global section
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/sdc2
label = Linux
video=800x600
read-only
# Linux bootable partition config ends

According to the LILO man page, "ignore-table" should go into lilo.conf as a global option.

Oops! Duplicate.

what is the ouput of fdisk -l when booted into Slackware 13.37?

Disk /dev/sda: 640.1 GB, 640135028736 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 77825 cylinders, total 1250263728 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xcf56eaa7

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 206847 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2 206848 1250260991 625027072 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

Disk /dev/sdb: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x4a6c4a6b

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 63 625141759 312570848+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

Disk /dev/sdc: 40.0 GB, 40020664320 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders, total 78165360 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0c7903ec

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 2048 4196351 2097152 82 Linux swap
/dev/sdc2 * 4196352 78165359 36984504 83 Linux

has lilo always been installed to the sdc2 partition or was it installed to the mbr of the drive at one time?

I always install LILO on the boot sector of the root partition not the MBR, but after all the
trouble I have been having I did a dd dump of the MBR and it does contain boot code, not just
the partition table. I can erase the boot code there leaving only the partition table and
disk identifier, but I don't see how that is going to cure the "inconsistent partition table".

Problem solved! Took a gamble and ran LILO -P fix after making a copy of the MBR with dd.
This changed two bytes in the partition table. Reran LILO -b /dev/sdc2 and it ran
successfully. Boot is good.

Good. Maybe you could mark this thread as solved then?