Very Computer

When I installed RH5 on my friend's machine, PII233, Asus Mother board
(with UDMA controller), 6.4 gig Maxtor UDMA drive, and a 3.4 non-UDMA
drive, everything went perfectly smoothly, until it tried to install lilo.
I tried a few times, then decided to skip it and try to fix it after
finishing setting it up.  After the installation, I used loadlin to boot,
after which I configured lilo, and ran /sbin/lilo, it said something...
something about the cylinders.... 3120(can't remember the number) is
greater than 1024 limit..???  I should have written it down(stupid me).
Anyway, if anyone has any idea what the problem could be, please CC to me.
I hope it doesn't have anything to do with the UDMA controller.  

BTW, I tried writing the mbr to both drives, same error both times.

Thanks,
Ryan McGuigan

The problem is simple: Your old stupid IBM XT-compatible Bios (found in all
modern motherboards for compatibility-reasons) can't handle drives of more
than 1024 cylinders. All modern drives have more. There are few solutions:

1) Repartition your disk and make sure there is a small linux partition
below the 1024 sectors, containing your kerneldirectory (usually /boot),
and put the rest of your linux in your upper space. Note: your other
Operating systems also have below the 1024 border.

2) Install a driver for large harddisks in your bootsector (Dynamic Drive
Overlay). They are available at your HD-manufacturers homepage. Not an ideal
solution for the ddo remains in memory, even when linux is running

3) I'm trying to find out how I can reprogram LILO to have a rock-solid
workaround. I'm still looking for the complete LILO-source, if someone could
help me... You can wait for that one and then boot linux without problems

jos
--

Quote:>everything went perfectly smoothly, until it tried to install lilo.
>I tried a few times, then decided to skip it and try to fix it after
>finishing setting it up.

you may need to go into CMOS setup and remove boot sector
protection.

WARNING: Do not do this if you are using a Disk Manager.

An alternate method is to install LILO to floppy.

: >everything went perfectly smoothly, until it tried to install lilo.
: >I tried a few times, then decided to skip it and try to fix it after
: >finishing setting it up.

One thing to consider, is whether the boot files are on a partition > 512
cylinders. I have a dos partition from cylinders 1 - 580 (or something),
and linux fills up the rest of my disk... however, with that, lilo will
not install. My solution was to put all the files on /boot in a directory
on my Dos partition, and then make /boot on the Linux side a symbolic link
to that partition. Then, just edit the /etc/lilo.conf to reflect this, and
install (make sure the kernel is in that boot directory as well).

This might be the problem. Try it and see.
--

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         Racing to the battle in the sky and ancient gods are  
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             of all the heroes who wait for me to die."

bye

Gianluca

--
Member of the Pluto Linux Users Group

  Web page: http://www.silab.dsi.unimi.it/~gm518464