[lug] LILO, RED HAT7.1 and XP home

[Nate Duehr]

On Fri, 2002-10-25 at 09:15, David Novotny wrote:

Hi David, 

> I killed the MBR on my system trying to do a dual boot XP home and RH 7.1 
> install.

You didn't "kill" your MBR.  You overwrote it with LILO and now LILO is 
misconfigured.  (GRIN)

> I can get to the linux using a boot disk but I can't reach my WIN side 
> anymore.   I can't boot from the local hard disk even into llinux all i get 
> is a single "L" on the screen when I try.
> 
> /dev/hda
> /dev/hda1   de DELL UTILITY
> /dev/hda2   *      WIN NT
> 
> /dev/hdb
> /dev/hdb1    *  83 Linux
> /dev/hdb2        82 linux swap
> /dev/hdb3        83 Linux

What is the configuration in /etc/lilo.conf?

On the partitions, is /dev/hdb1 mounting as /boot (or what?) and how big
is it?  Are you running into limitations of the BIOS and how far into
the drives it can boot from?  

Unless you have two *identical* machines, the comparison to another Dell
machine probably is not going to matter.  If you have two identical
machines, are the partition sizes, BIOS settings, and *EVERYTHING*
identical, not just the LILO configuration snd partition names/types?  

If not, look carefully at the differences and you'll be able to find out
why one works and the other doesn't.

> my lilo.conf is just like on my RH7.1 / WIN2000 machine but I can't get it 
> to work.  I believe that DELL put some kind of boot on /dev/hda1 that 
> references to /dev/hda2 to boot I recall doing some funny things to get the 
> WIN 2000 to boot after I installed RH7.1 but It was so long ago I can't 
> remember.  there is not "fdisk /mbr" for WINXP so I am at a little bit of a 
> loss.

Unfortunately I have no experience here... if XP or Dell does something
funky, I dunno...

> I need to get my XP stuff back (actually it is my bosses machine) - Any ideas

Well, let's start with... the whole "L" thing from LILO:  (from
/usr/share/doc/lilo/Manual.txt.gz)

(<nothing>)  No part of LILO has been loaded. LILO either isn't
installed or the partition on which its boot sector is located isn't
active.
   L <error> ...   The first stage boot loader has been loaded and
started, but it can't load the second stage boot loader. The two-digit
error codes indicate the type of problem. (See also section "Disk error
codes".) This condition usually indicates a media failure or a geometry
mismatch (e.g. bad disk parameters, see section "Disk geometry").
   LI   The first stage boot loader was able to load the second stage
boot loader, but has failed to execute it. This can either be caused by
a geometry mismatch or by moving /boot/boot.b without running the map
installer.
   LIL   The second stage boot loader has been started, but it can't
load the descriptor table from the map file. This is typically caused by
a media failure or by a geometry mismatch.
   LIL?   The second stage boot loader has been loaded at an incorrect
address. This is typically caused by a subtle geometry mismatch or by
moving /boot/boot.b without running the map installer.
   LIL-   The descriptor table is corrupt. This can either be caused by
a geometry mismatch or by moving /boot/map without running the map
installer.
   LILO   All parts of LILO have been successfully loaded.

So as you can see the machine is having a hard time loading the
second-stage bootloader, which I am assuming is in /dev/hdb1.  If
/dev/hdb1 is too big and/or there's a drive geometry mismatch going on,
LILO may not be able to "see" the second-stage bootloader on the disk. 
If it's way out at the end of the disk on /dev/hdb3 that could be even
"worse" from LILO's perspective...

Okay, so more info for you... we'll need more info from you to help. 
(GRIN)  I do agree with the other person who mentioned GRUB, though...
much more flexible, less of these limitations, works good... etc.  Nice
to be able to change the configuration at boot-time too, instead of
having to get to a working system and re-run LILO.

Let us know how you're doing...

Nate