Kevin,
Thanks for the explanation. It appears I do have LILO on my floppy because
the "linux root=/dev/hda2" command worked fine in booting my system to
maintanance mode. Still can't start X though.
However, using "Running Linux" 2nd ed. by Mat Welsh I tried,
rdev /boot/vmlinuz
and got Root device /dev/hdb1 back which I expected. I then tried
rdev /boot/vmlinuz /dev/hda2
whereupon I received the response that
vmlinuz Read-only file system.
I could try "linux root=/dev/hda2 rw" but I don't know if that is legit. Of
course when I attempted changing vmlinuz with chmod ugo+rwx vmlinuz, I got
the same response.
I think I'll try that reboot parm "rw" with the reboot. If it fails well...
I still can try changing the boot floppy as you recommended. I'll have to
find a good floppy first.
When I finally have full function restored I'm going to install LILO for
multiple OSs.
thanks,
mark