Very Computer

Okay,,,

Call me stupid if you like, i installed lilo onto my /dev/sda1 partition,
which just happens to be my main DOS drive!!

Now, after doing this, i get an "invalid media error". Is there any way
for me to restore my DOS drive to its former glory (it contains some
courseworks :-(() . Trying to fdisk /mbr from a boot disk does nowt.

Please, Please help..

Please mail directly...

Hoping someone can help..

Dave

Hello Dave,

Boot your system with the first DOS diskette but exit before re-installing
DOS again (this is important because the installation program will want to
format your disk). Once you have the "A>" prompt type:

FDISK /MBR

This command will remove LILO from your master boot record.  You'll have to
re-install LILO to get it to work again after this.  Put the first Linux
boot disk in your drive and put this parameter in at boot time:

linux root=/dev/sda?

where sda? is your Linux partition.

Cheers, Luc.

Quote:

> Okay,,,

> Call me stupid if you like, i installed lilo onto my /dev/sda1 partition,
> which just happens to be my main DOS drive!!

> Now, after doing this, i get an "invalid media error". Is there any way
> for me to restore my DOS drive to its former glory (it contains some
> courseworks :-(() . Trying to fdisk /mbr from a boot disk does nowt.

> Please, Please help..

> Please mail directly...

> Hoping someone can help..

> Dave

Quote:>Call me stupid if you like, i installed lilo onto my /dev/sda1 partition,
>which just happens to be my main DOS drive!!

>Now, after doing this, i get an "invalid media error". Is there any way
>for me to restore my DOS drive to its former glory (it contains some
>courseworks :-(() . Trying to fdisk /mbr from a boot disk does nowt.

If you installed to /dev/sda1, you didn't install it into the master
boot record, you installed it into the boot sector of partition 1. So
of course fdisk /mbr doesn't fix it, as the MBR wasn't the problem.
When you installed LILO, it preserved the old boot sector somewhere
(it tells you), probably something like /boot/boot.98725897145869.

What you need to do is "un-install" lilo's boot sector and replace
DOS's. Read the Lilo-HOWTO and/or the lilo man page. Then, to get lilo
to work right, mark your Linux partition bootable, UNMARK all other
bootable partitions, and install lilo to the boot sector of your Linux
partition.

PS: To boot Linux, use a bootable kernel floppy and boot it with:

LILO: <kernal_name> root=/dev/????

where ???? is the hard drive and partition name of your Linux
installation (/dev/sda2 for the second partition on the first SCSI
disk)

---Jim