Very Computer

Hi,

Can anyone help. I have a coumputer that has LILO set up on it to boot
Linux or Win95. (hda0- LINUX swap, hda1 - Win95, sda1 - linux). The
system was working until now when I tried to boot into win95 and nothing
happened (freeze). I can mount and work with the Win95 filesystem from
Linux without a problem.

Fdisk from linux says the system is FAT16 >32MB, but when booting from
Win95 floppy disk I can not see the C: drive (can change drive, but it
will not be able to read anything from it). FDISK from DOS says the
partition is OK (C:) but is an UNKNOWN type.

Is there any way to fix this problem? Better yet, to fix it without
re-installing the system?

Thanks

Peter

It sounds like something happened to the system files for your
win95 partition.  You may be able to fix this by booting from
a Windows Startup disk (or any DOS/Windows bootable floppy).
If you can see the C: drive when you do that, then the command
sys c: (but check the syntax)
should put the system files on the C: drive.

Before you do any of this make sure you can boot linux from
a floppy.  After you fix Windows, you may have to run lilo
again to be able to boot Windows from the hard drive.

--

Dept. of Mathematics, Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL 60208

Quote:> Can anyone help. I have a coumputer that has LILO set up on it to boot
> Linux or Win95. (hda0- LINUX swap, hda1 - Win95, sda1 - linux). The
> system was working until now when I tried to boot into win95 and nothing
> happened (freeze). I can mount and work with the Win95 filesystem from
> Linux without a problem.

Okay, I see a few odd things here.  For one, you have Win95 as hda1, and
the LINUX swap as hda0.  How did you set that up?  Is hda1 outside the
1024 cylinder limit?  Did you use a partition manager to move your Win95
partition?

Win95 does not like to be anywhere other than hda0.  By default it will
only install there.  I have had problems putting it anywhere else, even
with a utility like System Commander, which is supposed to let it boot
from other partitions.

Quote:> Fdisk from linux says the system is FAT16 >32MB, but when booting from
> Win95 floppy disk I can not see the C: drive (can change drive, but it
> will not be able to read anything from it). FDISK from DOS says the
> partition is OK (C:) but is an UNKNOWN type.

What FDISK did you make the Windows partition with?  Some FDISK utilities
set up the partitions in a way that specific versions of Windows can not
see.  For example, if you use a Win95 OSR2 Large Disk Support partition
(FAT32) it will not be visible to DOS or Win95a.  I have used both the
OS/2 and OpenLINUX partition programs to set up a FAT16 partition, and
then had DOS and Win95a FAIL to read that partition.

Quote:> Is there any way to fix this problem? Better yet, to fix it without
> re-installing the system?

The ONLY non-reinstall fix I can think of is if this is a BIOS
configuration issue.  If your initial drive setup in the BIOS was as LBA,
and you changed it to LARGE, then the way the information is stored on the
drive will be changed.  This makes partitions seem to disappear.  However,
if you change back from LARGE to LBA, the LINUX swap partition may need to
be re-initialized.

Another problem I can think of is the "Active" partition bit.  To be able
to boot from a partition, it must be set "Active."  This is a feature of
FDISK.  Due to your description, I DO NOT think this is your problem.  
However, as a just in case I will mention it here.  I have had a few
motherboards that deactivate the partitions on hda if ANY other hard drive
is used as the boot drive.  On those boards, all OS boot areas MUST be on
one drive.

------------------  Posted via CNET Help.com  ------------------
                      http://www.help.com/

According to /usr/src/linux/Documentation/devices.txt, which is
authoritative (it's the Linux kernel source), the first partition
on the first hard drive is block device 3,1 and the correct
name for its device node is /dev/hda1.  There is no
/dev/hda0.  Whatever software you used that thinks there is a
/dev/hda0 is broken.

The device name for the *whole drive* is /dev/hda, block device 3,0
You can create a Linux file system on /dev/hda, if for some bizarre
reason you don't want to use a partition table on the drive.
(Of course you could not use LILO on the drive, then.)
If Eric wrote a swap area on "/dev/hda0" and it's really /dev/hda,
his drive would not be usable by MS-Windows nor by Linux.

Incidentally, the same devices.txt file says the correct name for the
non-autodetected 1.44 MB 3.5 inch "A:" floppy is /dev/fd0u1440.
It's block device 2,28.  A certain popular Linux distribution
insists on calling it /dev/fd0H1440.  That distribution is broken.

Cameron

Quote:

> Can anyone help. I have a coumputer that has LILO set up on it to boot
> Linux or Win95. (hda0- LINUX swap, hda1 - Win95, sda1 - linux). The

what's hda0..? I have never seen such a device. /dev/hda is
generally the first harddisk, hda1 is the first partition
and sda1 looks like the first partition on a scsi drive..which
also makes sense.

But hda0 is new to me, and even if it did exist, what does it
point to? can you do a listing of your dev directory (not all
of it, just an 'ls -l /dev/hda*' and 'ls -l /dev/sda*')

<<snip>>

you sure have screwed up your first partition, and probably the
boot sector on it, which is why you see the 'UNKNOWN' bit..

A good starting point will be to boot your win95 floppy and
do an "fdisk /mbr". Then try to boot from the harddisk, and
if it loads win95, great! If it's says missing operating system
you're done.. grab those win95 CDs, linux CDs and restart.

And while you are at it please post the output of the dev listing
and an 'fdisk -l' from linux. That'll help to diagnose and
probably suggest a remedy for someone else some other time.

HTH

Jayan
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