Very Computer

by **gman** » Tue, 13 Feb 2001 21:23:37

(1)I switched my windows drive(which still has master boot record on
sector 0) to my slave drive B
(2)Then I installed Linux on my master drive A
- Lilo is unable to load windows MBR on drive B?

Can anyone tell me what the deal is?

Thanks In Advance....

by **Steve Marti** » Tue, 13 Feb 2001 22:23:26

> (1)I switched my windows drive(which still has master boot record on
> sector 0) to my slave drive B
> (2)Then I installed Linux on my master drive A
> - Lilo is unable to load windows MBR on drive B?

LILO doesn't need to boot your B drive's MBR; it can happily
boot Win95 from the Win95 loader located in the Windows
partition. I've been doing that here for years; I have
Win95 in /dev/hdb, Linux on /dev/hda, and use LILO to booth
both.

Here's an example of the entry from my lilo.conf file;

other=/dev/hdb1
label=Win95
map-drive=0x80
to=0x81
map-drive=0x81
to=0x80
table=/dev/hdb

When I select "Win95" as the system to boot, the bootstrap loader
(which lives on the MBR of drive A where LILO put it) goes to the
boot code in partition /dev/hdb1 and loads it, which is exactly
what the native Windows MBR code does anyway, so Windows never
knows the difference. Put an entry similar to this one in your
/etc/lilo.conf file and re-run lilo. If lilo seems to have
run successfully, try rebooting and selecting your Win95 OS.

Oh... the "map-drive" entries convince Windows that it's booting
from drive A. Without this, the Windows boot chokes.

Hope this helps.

by **Steve Marti** » Wed, 14 Feb 2001 22:28:28

> Oh... the "map-drive" entries convince Windows that it's booting
> from drive A. Without this, the Windows boot chokes.

^^^

Pardon the brain fade, that should say "drive C". (Got confused
in my own mind between drives and devices...)

by **Laurent Bloc** » Thu, 15 Feb 2001 00:28:24

I had the same problem, and will try Steve's solution.
But before reading, I've made a mistake: I put a MBR
on /dev/hdb and instructed the BIOS to boot on drive D:
It doesn't work. How to remove this MBR? install-mbr
man page is mute on the topic. Do I have something
to tell to the BIOS?

Thank you for any hint.

Laurent

>> (1)I switched my windows drive(which still has master boot record on
>> sector 0) to my slave drive B
>> (2)Then I installed Linux on my master drive A
>> - Lilo is unable to load windows MBR on drive B?
> LILO doesn't need to boot your B drive's MBR; it can happily
> boot Win95 from the Win95 loader located in the Windows
> partition. I've been doing that here for years; I have
> Win95 in /dev/hdb, Linux on /dev/hda, and use LILO to booth
> both.
> Here's an example of the entry from my lilo.conf file;
> other=/dev/hdb1
> label=Win95
> map-drive=0x80
> to=0x81
> map-drive=0x81
> to=0x80
> table=/dev/hdb
> When I select "Win95" as the system to boot, the bootstrap loader
> (which lives on the MBR of drive A where LILO put it) goes to the
> boot code in partition /dev/hdb1 and loads it, which is exactly
> what the native Windows MBR code does anyway, so Windows never
> knows the difference. Put an entry similar to this one in your
> /etc/lilo.conf file and re-run lilo. If lilo seems to have
> run successfully, try rebooting and selecting your Win95 OS.
> Oh... the "map-drive" entries convince Windows that it's booting
> from drive A. Without this, the Windows boot chokes.
> Hope this helps.

by **gman** » Thu, 15 Feb 2001 10:39:26

Thanks, that worked just fine.... I was missing the 'map-drive' and the
'to' commands.... I never would have figured that out, because I can't
even find them in the 'man lilo.conf' file....

now if I could just figure out if I can stop lilo from using that
graphical boot screen, and only use the text prompt....

> > Oh... the "map-drive" entries convince Windows that it's booting
> > from drive A. Without this, the Windows boot chokes.
> ^^^

> Pardon the brain fade, that should say "drive C". (Got confused
> in my own mind between drives and devices...)

by **Duane Healin** » Thu, 15 Feb 2001 19:01:07

Lilo's boot screen is determined by the file written to the boot sector
pointed to in /etc/lilo.conf under the "install=" line. Usually this
reads simply "install=boot.b", but I've seen other configurations as
well. Look in that file and see what it's pointing too, then look in
/boot and see if a standard boot.b is there. Change the lilo.conf to
point to it, rerun lilo and you should be set.

--
-Duane
-DNAware SoftLabs

In article

> Thanks, that worked just fine.... I was missing the 'map-drive' and the
> 'to' commands.... I never would have figured that out, because I can't
> even find them in the 'man lilo.conf' file....

> now if I could just figure out if I can stop lilo from using that
> graphical boot screen, and only use the text prompt....

>> > Oh... the "map-drive" entries convince Windows that it's booting from
>> > drive A. Without this, the Windows boot chokes.
>> ^^^

>> Pardon the brain fade, that should say "drive C". (Got confused in my
>> own mind between drives and devices...)

by **Steve Marti** » Fri, 16 Feb 2001 11:05:36

> Lilo's boot screen is determined by the file written to the boot sector
> pointed to in /etc/lilo.conf under the "install=" line. Usually this
> reads simply "install=boot.b", but I've seen other configurations as
> well. Look in that file and see what it's pointing too, then look in
> /boot and see if a standard boot.b is there. Change the lilo.conf to
> point to it, rerun lilo and you should be set.

Unforunately, my lilo.conf file already points to /boot/boot.b
with the "install=" line. Looks like maybe Red Hat might have
come up with a custom boot loader??

by **Duane Healin** » Fri, 16 Feb 2001 17:38:44

Wouldn't surprise me. RH always does seem compelled to do things their
own way (not usually the right way IMO). You could always download the
lilo source, compile, and install it yourself.

--
-Duane
-DNAware SoftLabs

>> Lilo's boot screen is determined by the file written to the boot sector
>> pointed to in /etc/lilo.conf under the "install=" line. Usually this
>> reads simply "install=boot.b", but I've seen other configurations as
>> well. Look in that file and see what it's pointing too, then look in
>> /boot and see if a standard boot.b is there. Change the lilo.conf to
>> point to it, rerun lilo and you should be set.

> Unforunately, my lilo.conf file already points to /boot/boot.b with the
> "install=" line. Looks like maybe Red Hat might have come up with a
> custom boot loader??

by **Carl Pet** » Sun, 11 Mar 2001 10:14:39

Have not had your problem Laurent as my kit is too old but think I can
help. Terminology is often confusing here. I got an ooooold Slackware
distribution from a demo CD from 1996 or sometime and that had lots of
documentation about LILO that came with it in .tex format in the
/usr/doc/lilo directory (sym. link to /usr/lib/lilo on mine), using the
makefile makes .dvis and then dvips makes Postscript that I viewed with
Ghostview in X. It was really interesting, nicely laid out and
helpful. Can poss. email to you if needed.

Basically MBR is just one of the different types of boot sector. They
are all a bit like the one you get on the first sector of a floppy (even
"blank" or "data" floppies have one but it usually does nothing but
print the message "Non system disk" and hang). Most (all?) partitions
on a HD have a boot sector, also the disk itself has one. This last one
is the MBR. Many of these boot sectors also contain a partition table
in their second half on top of the bootable code in the first half.
Different OSes have different stuff in the boot sectors. The DOS MBR
code looks to its partition table and looks for the active partition
then loads that partition's boot sector and executes it. This is why if
you have left the "normal" DOS MBR on your main drive you have to use
either DOS or Linux fdisk to change the active flag if you want to "boot
from another partition".

So basically the MBR is only relevant on your main disk but if it's a
DOS MBR then it can't boot something on the second hard disk which is
where lilo comes in. As I understand it you've got Linux somewhere on
your main disk and Windows 95 somewhere on your second disk? If this is
the case then leave the DOS MBR on the main drive and have it boot lilo
on your linux partition. Then configure lilo to either boot Linux or
Win95 from the 2nd drive. It will be irrelevant what is on the MBR of
the second drive. If you are paranoid and want to set it back anyway
then proceed as Steve suggested then when Windows 95 is running from the
second drive you should be able to use FDISK /MBR to replace the DOS MBR
on that disk. I haven't tried this myself though because my second
drive contains only my WinNT with 100% NTFS so I can't do it!

Good luck.

> I had the same problem, and will try Steve's solution.
> But before reading, I've made a mistake: I put a MBR
> on /dev/hdb and instructed the BIOS to boot on drive D:
> It doesn't work. How to remove this MBR? install-mbr
> man page is mute on the topic. Do I have something
> to tell to the BIOS?

> Thank you for any hint.

> Laurent

Very Computer

Can LILO boot windows MBR on /dev/hdb?

Can LILO boot windows MBR on /dev/hdb?

Can LILO boot windows MBR on /dev/hdb?

Can LILO boot windows MBR on /dev/hdb?

Can LILO boot windows MBR on /dev/hdb?

Can LILO boot windows MBR on /dev/hdb?

Can LILO boot windows MBR on /dev/hdb?

Can LILO boot windows MBR on /dev/hdb?

Can LILO boot windows MBR on /dev/hdb?

Can LILO boot windows MBR on /dev/hdb?