[NTLUG:Discuss] Possible dual boot screw up...

[Chris Cox]

Wayne Dahl wrote:

> Hi again,
>
>
>> During the Linux (any flavor) install process, you are asked if you 
>> want to load linux from either the MBR, or from another partion. 
>> IE... /root if you do not
>> have a seperate partition for your /boot. If you are using the MBR, 
>> then XOSL will overwrite the LILO boot information, and you will not 
>> have boot-up
>> information available on any other partition. If you installed LILO 
>> to the /dev/hda2   aka the /boot partition, then when XOSL starts, 
>> run setup, point it to
>> the 2nd partition of the primary drive, and lable it LINUX or 
>> whatever you want. But you must have installed LILO to that partition.
>>
>> Another remedy (after you have already installed Linux), is to boot 
>> from the emergency floppy you made during install, or the recovery 
>> boot disk
>> provided with most distros. Once Linux is loaded, edit the LILO 
>> config (locations vary) file to reflect hda2 as your boot partition, 
>> and then re-run
>> /sbin/lilo to re-install LILO to the correct partition.
>
>
> Ok, keeping in mind that I'm really a newbie at this, I have checked 
> everywhere I know to, used find to try to find the lilo.conf file and 
> it's not anywhere on the machine that I can find.  Lilo is in 
> /sbin/lilo and shows to be installed on the machine, but I can't find 
> the config file anywhere.  The man page for lilo says it should be in 
> /etc/lilo.conf, but it's not there.  Soooo...now what?  I have no idea 
> what to use to set one up from scratch. 


It really should be in /etc/lilo.conf, it's possible that either the 
installation did not put one in place
or it was remove accidentally.

Since you lost your original LILO, you probably should create a boot 
diskette prior to doing this:

# dd if=/boot/vmlinuz of=/dev/fd0
# rdev /dev/fd0 /dev/hda3
(for rdev you are specifying where the partition where the / filesystem 
resides.. in
the lilo.conf below it is /dev/hda3, might be just /dev/hda1 in a 
typical fat
root install)

Leave the floppy inserted (assuming your BIOS is set to boot from floppy 
first and do
a test reboot to make sure you can boot up from floppy).

Now for LILO...

A basic lilo.conf looks like:

boot    = /dev/hda
read-only
lba32
timeout = 80

  image  = /boot/vmlinuz
  label  = linux
  root   = /dev/hda3
  initrd = /boot/initrd

/dev/hda is the boot disk (where the MBR is).... on most dual-boot 
systems, it will be
the C: device... and usually will be /dev/hda on IDE based systems.
The root= parameter specifies the partition for the root filesystem, 
that is /
kernel= is where you put the path to your kernel... many default to 
something
like /boot/vmlinuz... check your /boot area for the name of your kernel.
The initrd is optional, if you do not have a /boot/initrd for your 
system, then remove
it.  An initial ram disk is used to boot a mini-kernel so that device 
drivers can be
loaded so that the actual kernel can be found (e.g. you may want to boot 
off of
a USB hard drive or something).

Once saved, execute lilo as root... and hopefully you are set to go.  

>
>
> Also, how would I know what partition lilo is installed to?  The only 
> things I can find about the partitions doesn't tell me what 
> filesystems are actually installed there. 

LILO typically goes onto the MBR of the boot drive.

>
>
> Any help would be most appreciated.  So far, all the books I've 
> checked have not been much help as they all say to edit the lilo.conf 
> file...that doesn't seem to exist!

Hope I've helped somewhat... what distribution left you in such a mess? 
(just curious)... or was
it all the alternative boot loader discussions.... if you are newbie, I 
would stick with LILO,
although I believe that RH is defaulting to grub... I know this because 
I've had to help people
fix their broken grub that RH put in place :-) ... and yes, I already 
know that "grub is better",
however when I tell new RH folks that, they usually just erase Linux and 
reinstall Windows on
their machines... so I've stopped saying that.

>
> Thanks again,
>
> Wayne
>
>
>
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