lilo failed--HELP

[Patrick Fleming]

> > The problem is he never gets the prompt. I think- based upon a previous
> > post of lilo.conf- that root is *way* too high on the disk, /dev/hdb8 if I
> > remember right. And boot=/dev/hda does not seem right either. There needs
> > to be a partition number there.. If you are using an older mb/bios, then
> > that could be the problem. Try setting up /boot=dev/hdb1 and (root)
> > /root=/dev/hdb2. Of course this may require a new install. I tried to get
> > my RH7.1 box to partion the way *I* thought it should be, and no luck.
> > When I let the installation decide I was much better off. But, that
> > doesn't mean that you couldn't get it to work just by moving some
> > partitions around to be lower on the disk (write your changes into
> > lilo.conf then rerun lilo)
> > Patrick

Sorry about that, perhaps my response was too long and a bit garbled- I
would reinstall RedHat letting the install script choose the partitions
based upon a completely new install:

<original post>
I installed a second drive as a primary slave today on the Win 98 box.
and loaded Red Hat 7.1.  I set lilo to install on the mbr of hda [the
Win drive].  Upon reboot after the start up bios type stuff I get a
blank screen with the letter "L" and that is it.  I tried typing and
nothing seems to work.  Presently I was able to get to C:\>, but I do
not know what to do now.

My guess is that there must be a way to get to the mbr and kill lilo
so at least I can get Windows back and perhaps try again.

Anxiously awaiting any responses.
</original post>


Patrick (no not that one, the other one)
> >
> ------
> I'm a bit bothered by this post - not because it's incorrect, it may
> very well be the problem and have the solution in hand.
>
> In fact, if we go by the contents of his lilo.conf which lists
> root=/dev/hdb8 (which may or may not be out of BIOS range), it seems
> apparent to me that lilo is indeed installed in the mbr of his master
> drive and this startup choice between OS should indeed be available.
>
> It's also possible that the problem is as you say, that the '/boot'
> partition was written on a sector not available to his BIOS - and thus
> isn't found and in that case, I could point him to ...
>
> Using LILO when BIOS can't see the Root Partition
> <http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/LILO-5.html>
>
> but he was asking for step by step instructions..."sorry to ask for
> by-the-numbers" and your explanation isn't gonna help him.
>
> Craig
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