LIL prob on boot

[squareyes]

Have finally managed to get Mandrake 8 to work, but still have curser imprints everywhere, and Rpmdrake not opening completely then freezing. so after much hair tearing out managed to get Red Hat 7.1 installed,in low resolution mode, but again cannot access Win98, or Red Hat with out Redhat boot disk.
Get LIL on boot and thats as far as it goes.
Have been into LILO config and doesn't make sense to me. Had Grub on with Mandrake 8, could this be the problem? If so, how do I remove it from win98 boot record> if thats possible. I am getting curser imprints now in Netscape with Red Hat 7.1
Have various versions of Linux, but after 4 days and nearly as many nights am thinking of chucking it altogether, or maybe I have been lucky and aquired a collection of shonky cd's.
Have 40 gig drive with 2 20 gig partitions, Linux on second partition.
133 meg processor, 64meg EDO, 1 meg video

squareyes

[eXtremist]

you need to edit your /etc/lilo.conf file and add 'lba32' somewhere close to the beginning (probably right before 'prompt'). Then run /sbin/lilo and restart.

Of course, since you can't boot, you'll need a linux boot disk to achieve this.. I hope you made one when you installed!! :D

[squareyes]

Sure did make a boot disk,
without it my computer is unusable.

Tried to edit lilo conf file got this.

[squareye@localhost squareye] $su
password |
[root@localhost squareye]$ /etc/lilo.conf
bash:/etc/lilo.conf: Permision denied
[root@localhost squareye]

I am probably doing something wrong, am very new to command line,Used to how windoze does things, and very slow, circular
sawed my right hand 8 weeks ago and now one handed.

Thanks for the info, will keep trying, don't want this to beat me.

squareyes

[bdg1983]

/etc is the path and lilo.conf is the configuration file.

You need to load lilo.conf into a text editor.

vi /etc/lilo.conf

There a tutorial on using vi in the NHF's.

[squareyes]

Sorry, lilo config reads

boot="/dev/hda2"
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
prompt
timeout="50"
message=/boot/message
lba32
default=linux

image="/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.2-2
label=linux
read-only
root="/dev/hda5"
append="hdd=ide-scsi"

other=/dev/hda1
optional
label=dos

The script has a line lba32 just after the
prompt should I shift it?? Will try and find the tutorial. thanks again

squareyes

[bdg1983]

Is there something I'm missing?

2 20GB partitions, but you have Redhat, Mandrake and Win98 installed???

Where was Lilo installed to? From lilo.conf, it looks like hda2.

One version of Linux is installed (root partition) on hda5 and Windows installed on hda1.

Your lilo.conf does not seem quite right to me for what you have.

What partition is set as active?

[squareyes]

Sorry, have copies of most, only have
win98 and Redhat 7.1 installed, installed
7.1 as new install over Redhat 7 as 7.1 wouldn't let me past partitioning.
Installed 7 first and used partitions it
made auto. This has been a very frustrating experience, taken nearly a week to get this far, up to 2.30 in morning doing it, don't
like being beaten at anything , but this is getting close :-)
have tried complete installs, updates, in
graphic modes, low resolution, and text.
The best I have managed so far was Mandrake 7, and that would not open rpmdrake, so could not install or uninstall anything.

Just had a look at vi tutorial, something else to learn, will have a go.
Thanks
squareyes

[eXtremist]

Hmm.. I've had the LIL problem many times before, and its always been remedied the same way...

See, lilo has this issue with being installed past cylinder #1024 on your hard drive. When one does enounter this error instead of getting LILO: at bootup, you either get nothing, LI, LIL, or even a repeating series of garbage.

Usually this is fixed by adding "lba32" to your lilo.conf. This doesn't seem to be working for you. The only thing I can suggest is to check your BIOS and make sure your hard drive is set up to use LBA! If your hard drive is not using LBA in the BIOS, then there's no point in having it in your lilo.conf.

You said you have a 40G hard drive, though, and I'm sure you wouldn't be able to use it if LBA wasn't enabled..

[eXtremist]

I just found this section in The Linux Administrator FAQ found here (http://sunsite.dk/linux-newbie/index.htm).



I quote from my good handbook "Red Hat Linux Unleashed" by Kamran Hussain, Timothy Parker, et al., published by SAMS Publishing:
"When LILO loads itself, it displays the word LILO. Each letter is printed before or after performing some specific action. If LILO fails at some point, the letters printed so far can be used to identify the problem. [...]
LI [...] This is caused either by geometry mismatch or by moving /etc/lilo/boot.b without running the map installer.
LIL [...] This is typically caused by media failure or geometry mismatch."
The geometry means the number of sectors/heads/cylinders used in the hard drive configuration of your BIOS. Hope this helps!
It is a very good idea to have a handbook for Linux or at least a general UNIX handbook. Handbooks for Windows are useless, handbooks for Linux are great! "Red Hat Linux Unleashed" is a very good handbook but I am sure there are many other equally good ones.
With a LILO error like above, you can boot your machine using a Linux or DOS boot floppy. There seems to be several general possibilities to correct such a LILO error, depending on what is wrong:
1. If LILO simply got corrupted (does not seem very common), you can remove and re-install it. You can remove LILO by running under Linux:
lilo -u /dev/hda
or, under DOS:
FDISK/MBR
which rewrites the hard drive master boot record (MBR), in which LILO resides, and replaces it with "clean" DOS stuff. You will lose access to Linux if you rebooted your computer after removing LILO (if this happend, you can boot Linux from the floppy and re-install LILO on top of the DOS MBR).

To re-install LILO, simply re-run the command lilo (as root).
2. Specify the option
linear
at the top of your /etc/lilo.conf file. This is particularly useful for large drives (>8 GB). See man lilo.conf for details. The option "linear" is safe--it should not affect a properly working system, so you can specify this option is any case.

You may also want to play with the method by which BIOS accesses your harddrive. Fore example, turn the LBA ("linear or large block access") mode on/off in your BIOS to see if this helps.

Instead of the option "linear" you may try specifing the option (helpful to overcome the 1024 cyliner limit with larger hardrives and newer BIOSes):
lba32
This is a new option so it won't work with the stock LILO supplied with RH6.1 or lower. Use the latest Mandrake or RedHat if having the "LI" kind of problems--hard drives are bigger and bigger, and BIOS makers put new tricks to support them.

3. Look into your BIOS setup and figure out how the specified hard drive geometry does not match your hard drive. From under Linux, you can display the hard drive geometry using (for example, for the first IDE hard drive):
hdparm -g /dev/hda

You can typically easily find the recommended manufacturer geometry on the web using Google to search for your harddrive model number.

4. Put LILO on another partition (different hard drive) and, using fdisk, make this partition bootable (if your system supports booting from another drive). Or swap your hardrives so that the one that is better supported by your old BIOS comes as the first hard drive on your first IDE interface (DOS drive "C").
5. Maybe you prefer to use "loadlin" instead of "lilo". From under DOS, locate your CDROM and see the program /dosutils/loadlin.exe. It boots Linux from DOS.

6. Get rid of LILO and use GRUB. Mandrake 7.2 contains GRUB as the default boot loader.


Hope it helps and sorry to all those who regard this as SPAM..