Very Computer

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.

1). LILO can and will boot NT regardless of whether it lives on NTFS
    or some FAT variant. Here's a typical LILO configuration file
        stanza:

                other = /dev/hda1
                        label = nt
                        table = /dev/hda

2). The current stable kernel series supports NTFS reads without any
        ``updates''. Simply select that option during the config step.

3). More to the point, there's not a relationship whatsoever between
        the kernel and LILO insofar as what's bootable. Compiling the
        kernel with NTFS is not required to boot WNT.

I have '98 (with Fat32), NT (with NTFS) and Linux on one 10GB-Drive, and
(after some re- and re- and reinstalling) it now works, if one knows what to
do ;-)

boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
prompt
timeout=50
image=/boot/vmlinuz
        label=linux
        root=/dev/hda6
        read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz.old
        label=linux.old
        root=/dev/hda6
        read-only
other=/dev/hda1
        label=winnt
        table=/dev/hda

This boots Linux by default.  I can boot NT by typing "winnt" and the
boot: prompt.  The timeout value gives me 50 seconds to type in winnt
before booting Linux by default.

Hope this helps....

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.

1.  Lilo can boot NT, but it has to be done in exactly the right
way or you have to be lucky.  I don't know why you got an error
message during installation.   See below for details.

2.  If you put lilo in the master boot record, which is the default
choice, there is a good chance you made it impossible to boot
NT.  I've seen machines with NT/Linux with lilo in the MBR which
worked fine---and one of the responses to your question had a
lilo.conf file doing exactly that---but every time I've tried
it, NT had indigestion.   I would not put lilo in the MBR if
I were running NT.   If you in fact did that, however, all is
not lost.  Somewhere on the NT boot floppy or NT CD you should
find the NT fdisk.  If you can put it on a bootable floppy,
even a DOS floppy, then executing the command
fdisk/mbr
from the floppy should restore the master boot record.  After
this NT should boot by default, but you won't be able to boot
Linux from the disk.  If you made a boot floppy for Linux,
you can boot Linux using that and proceed.

3.  Once you have restored the MBR and can boot NT, you can
arrange to have the NT boot loader boot both NT and Linux.
This is described in the Linux+NT mini HOWTO.

4.  If this is all on one disk, the following is simpler I
believe.  First, boot using your boot floppy, and configure
lilo.conf so that the first line
boot=...
puts lilo in the first sector of the root partition or
if separate the boot partition.  Here's an example of what
lilo.conf might look like

boot=/dev/hda2
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
prompt
timeout=50
image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.2.5-15
        label=linux
        root=/dev/hda2
        read-only
other=/dev/sda1
        label=nt
        table=/dev/sda

Run lilo.
But lilo still won't be able to boot
because the first partition is the active partition.  (When the BIOS
starts booting it looks in the MBR to see which partition
is active and goes there.  So it will never get where lilo
is.)   You can change this by running fdisk and toggling the
statuses of the partitions so the first partition
is no longer active and
the partition where you put lilo is active.  I
don't remember if you can do this while Linux
is running from one of those partitions.   If not proceed
as below.
Use your Linux boot floppy and rescue mode floppy
(if you've created them).  Note it could take a very long
time to boot from the boot floppy.  Alternately just boot
the Linux installation floppy, do a custom install and get to the
part where you can partition by running fdisk.  Either
way run fdisk and just toggle the active partition as
described above.  Now you should be able to boot both
Linux and NT.

--

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

Quote:> other=/dev/sda1
             ^^
>         label=nt
>         table=/dev/sda

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

  # Start LILO global Section
  #
  prompt
  read-only
  boot    = /dev/hda
  timeout = 100
  vga     = normal        # force sane state

  # End LILO global Section
  #
  image   = /boot/bzImage-2.2.10-2
          root    = /dev/hda2
          label   = Linux

  image   = /boot/vmlinuz
          root    = /dev/hda2
          label   = Linux-Orig

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

Notice that since my NT is on a second drive, it is necessary to map the
drive so that NT will be able to boot.

--

PS> Remove the "4" from e-mail address to respond.