>>>> I'm having a problem setting up LILO to dual boot my PC.
>>>> I have two IDE hard drives with Win98 on the master (hda) and Linux
>>>> (Red Hat 7.3) on the slave (hdb). Win98 boots directly from the hard
>>>> drive, while I have to boot Linux from a floppy disk.
>>>> Each OS resides on its own hard drive. Other than Linux having a
>>>> /win mount point, there's no other un-chaperoned, touchie-feelie
>>>> things going on between the two drives<g>.
>>>> I would like to use LILO as my boot manager and be able to boot
>>>> either OS from my master hard drive's boot loader and do away with
>>>> the very slow floppy boot, but have not had any success. (For test
>>>> purposes, I've created a "dummy" Win98 hard drive as my C/: or hda
>>>> drive, so no "real" data has been harmed in the pursuit of this
>>>> exercise -- I'm not into that kind of self-abuse.)
>>>> Here's what I've tried. Using as my "lilo.conf"file:
>>>> prompt
>>>> timeout=50
>>>> default=win
>>>> boot=/dev/hdb1
>>>> map=/boot/map
>>>> install=/boot/boot.b
>>>> message=/boot/message
>>>> lba32
>>>> image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.18-3
>>>> label=linux
>>>> initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.18-3.img
>>>> read-only
>>>> root=/dev/hdb2
>>>> other=/dev/hda1
>>>> table=/dev/hda
>>>> optional
>>>> label=win
>>>> The output from running /sbin/lilo was:
>>>> Warning: /dev/hdb1 is not on the first disk.
>>>> LILO version 21.4-4, Copyright (C) 1992-1998 Werner Almesberger
>>>> 'lba32' extensions Copyright (C) 1999,2000 John Coffman
>>>> Reading boot sector from /dev/hdb1
>>>> Merging with /boot/boot.b
>>>> Mapping message file /boot/message
>>>> Boot image: /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.18-3
>>>> Mapping RAM disk /boot/initrd-2.4.18-3.img
>>>> Added linux
>>>> Boot other: /dev/hda1, on /dev/hda, loader /boot/chain.b
>>>> Added win *
>>>> /boot/boot.0341 exists - no backup copy made.
>>>> Writing boot sector.
>>>> When I reboot, I get Win98 instead of the LILO choice screen. So the
>>>> questions are, where have I gone wrong, and how do I fix it?
>>>> (Oh yeah, where can I get a copy of the LILO documentation? I looked
>>>> at the my Linux doc directory and read through the process to
>>>> produce it. There's gotta be a simpler way to see this
>>>> documentation. Can anyone point to a URL for this?)
>>>> Thanks for any help or input.
>>>> ========================
>>>> John--
>>>> ========================
>>>To use lilo as your boot manager, it must be resident in the Master
>>>Boot Record and not in the boot sector of your root partition.
>>>So,
>>>Change this:
>>>boot=/dev/hdb1
>>>To read this:
>>>boot=/dev/hda
>>>Also check the contents of /boot.
>>>You will probably find vmlinuz as a link to vmlinuz-2.4.18-3
>>>You will probably also find initrd.img as a link to
>>>initrd-2.4.18-3.img In which case you can change your linux stanza to
>>>image=/boot/vmlinuz
>>>label=linux
>>>initrd=/boot/initrd.img
>>>read-only
>>>root=/dev/hdb2
>>>This assumes that your linux root is in /dev/hdb2
>>>(quaere what is in /dev/hdb1)
>>>It also assumes that your windows c: drive is in /dev/hda1
>>>(from your writing of /etc/lilo.conf)
>>>After you save your edited file, don't forget to run /sbin/lilo from a
>>>root prompt so as to create lilo in the MBR.
>>>By changing boot=/dev/hdb1 to boot=/dev/hda your next boot should
>>>bring up the lilo menu and give you 5 seconds to choose linux before
>>>it boots to windows.
>> Clive,
>> Thanks! That did the trick. It even preserved my animated Star Trek
>> startup screen on Win98 -- I had been worried about that. ( After
>> all, I have my standards. They're very low, but I have 'em! <g>)
>> To answer your question ("...what is in /dev/hdb1"): it is boot, as
>> you suspected.
>> I'd still like to get a copy of the LILO documentation to continue the
>> education process.
>> ========================
>> John--
>> ========================
>See the LILO User's guide here:
>http://www.yggdrasil.com/bible/lilo/user/user.html
>See the LILO Technical Overview here
>http://www.yggdrasil.com/bible/lilo/tech/tech.html
>I have also separated out a bookmark for the LILO boot error codes,
>here:
>http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Bootdisk-HOWTO/a1483.html
>The latest page is part of the Linux Bootdisk HOWTO, here:
>http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Bootdisk-HOWTO/index.html
>BTW, depending on your distro, the Lilo User's Guide and/or the Linux
>Bootdisk HOWO may be on disk in your distro's install set.
>An excellent textbook is this:
>LINUX:Rute User's Tutorial and Exposition
>Author: Paul Sheer
>Publisher: Prentice Hall
>This book is online here:
>http://www.icon.co.za/~psheer/book/index.html.gz
>But it is much easier to read in the paper edition as it isabout 550
>pages of Technical size paperback.
>My copy is well thumbed.
>Another good book, although somewhat older (The Kernel version was about
>1.1 when it was published) is this:
>Running Linux
>Authors: Matt Welsh and Lar Kaufman
>Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates
Thanks, again. Looks like good bed time reading -- I'll track 'em
down. Hopefully, they'll keep me out of trouble in the future.
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