Installing LILO on HDB

[Redbone]

First, let me provide some details: DELL Dimension 4100, BIOS A07 (Phoenix), Pentium III @ 1.0 Ghz, 128Mb of RAM, IDE Master hard drive is IBM 10.0 GB, user installed IDE Slave hard drive is IBM 70GB. The slave (secondary) hard drive is installed properly and recognized by the BIOS.

I have Mandrake distro 8.0. I have used earlier distros including RH and Suse. Is there any way to install LILO on the slave drive so that I can set the BIOS to boot the primary drive and get whatever OS is on that and be able to reset the BIOS to boot the slave and then get LILO to come up ?

It seems that whenever I install LILO on hdb it hangs at the LI. If I install LILO on HDA there is no problem, even with the LINUX partitions on hdb, but this is not what I am trying to do. Has anyone figured out how to install LILO on hdb and have it work ?

I have done a fair amount of research on this and still have no good explanation. There is not a conflict between fdisk thinking that this is the primary HD and LILO thinking that this is the secondary. The /etc/lilo.config file looks good, all references are to hdb.

OK, here are some of my ramblings: hdb05 thru hdb0x are the extended partitions, with hdb01 thru hdb04 the primary partitons. When LILO is loaded on hdb it is put in the MBR of hdb. I am going to try putting it on hdb01. Or should I put it on hdb05 if that is my root "/" partition ? I didn't know that hdb01 even existed as only extended partitions were created during the install.

Finally, if I put LILO on hdb01 or hdb05, can I use the LINUX fdisk to restore the MBR on hdb ?

[lazyboy]

I have Mandrake distro 8.0. I have used earlier distros including RH and Suse. Is there any way to install LILO on the slave drive so that I can set the BIOS to boot the primary drive and get whatever OS is on that and be able to reset the BIOS to boot the slave and then get LILO to come up ?

I have heard that you could disconnect the first IDE disk and install linux from the cdrom to the 2nd IDE disk.

It seems that whenever I install LILO on hdb it hangs at the LI. If I install LILO on HDA there is no problem, even with the LINUX partitions on hdb, but this is not what I am trying to do. Has anyone figured out how to install LILO on hdb and have it work ?

The best way to install LILO is to put it in the MBR> Try reading the LILO mini howto for more details.

I have done a fair amount of research on this and still have no good explanation. There is not a conflict between fdisk thinking that this is the primary HD and LILO thinking that this is the secondary. The /etc/lilo.config file looks good, all references are to hdb.

Can we take a look at your lilo config file?

OK, here are some of my ramblings: hdb05 thru hdb0x are the extended partitions, with hdb01 thru hdb04 the primary partitons. When LILO is loaded on hdb it is put in the MBR of hdb. I am going to try putting it on hdb01. Or should I put it on hdb05 if that is my root "/" partition ? I didn't know that hdb01 even existed as only extended partitions were created during the install.

You are using Mandrake right? hdb05 to hdb0x are not extended partitions. They are logical. You could set up a /boot primary partition and an extended partition containing /home, /usr, etc. But still the best way is to install in the MBR.

[Roy Smith]

if you can set your bios to boot from the slave, do that then install lilo to that drive - it may actually be seen as your first hard drive, that has happened to me. i would guess that you don't care to use lilo to boot any other opsys, so also config it to only boot linux from the drive on which it's installed. you should then be able to choose your boot drive from the bios. at least, i think so.
you may very possibly have to install linux with the slave as the primary boot drive in order for everything to be properly referenced.
in short, select in bios to boot from secondary drive, install linux and lilo to that drive. then see if it works!
of course, that's just my *suggestion* - i only *thought* about doing things that way the first time i installed linux.

[Redbone]

Thanks for the help, I am replying here from Netscape running on Linux, which makes it easier to get my facts straight. Here is my lilo.conf file :

boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
vga=normal
default=linux
keytable=/boot/us.klt
lba32
prompt
timeout=50
message=/boot/message-graphic
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label=linux
root=/dev/hda5
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append=" quiet"
vga=788
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuzimage=/boot/vmlinuz
label=failsafe
root=/dev/hda5
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append=" failsafe"
read-only
other=/dev/hdb1
label=windows
table=/dev/hdb
map-drive=0x80
to=0x81
map-drive=0x81
to=0x80
label=linux-nonfb
root=/dev/hda5
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
read-only

What I have done is to load Windows ME on the Primary IDE slave, hdb. I then put Linux on the Primary IDE master, hda. I can now easily boot either Linux or Windows by changing the boot IDE setting in the BIOS. Once the setting is changed, no further action is necessary and no boot managers are needed, or wanted. I really wanted Linux on hdb, but I could not get it to work without using the boot disk (slow). On my last stab at putting Linux on hdb I got Lilo to initialize but then got a kernal panic, unable to mount root filesystem.

I have gotten the modem configured. The printer still is not working right, and occiasionally hangs the system. I have an HPDJ882c. Have tried using CUPS and the turboprint utility with lpr. Both are unreliable and hang. I have also noticed that some of the toys like OpenUniverse and Mesa gears also hang Linux. Is there anyway to recover from these hangs ? I have tried ctrl-c, ctrl-x, ctrl-z, ctrl-alt-del, Break and a few others, no response. I am a little disappointed that this kernal seems to hang, not in character with a Unix system.

Any suggestions on getting the sound card working ? It is a Philips psc702 Rhythmic Edge, but is really the VSLI Thunderbird PCI, Philips just bought them. I will be hitting the various driver sites later. Thanks.

[ 15 September 2001: Message edited by: Redbone ]

[Linuxcool]

I see one problem with your lilo.conf file. It should look like this:

boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
vga=normal
default=linux
keytable=/boot/us.klt
lba32
prompt
timeout=50
message=/boot/message-graphic
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label=linux
root=/dev/hda5
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append=" quiet"
vga=788
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label=failsafe
root=/dev/hda5
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append=" failsafe"
read-only
other=/dev/hdb1
label=windows
table=/dev/hdb
map-drive=0x80
to=0x81
map-drive=0x81
to=0x80
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label=linux-nonfb
root=/dev/hda5
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
read-only

[ 16 September 2001: Message edited by: Linuxcool ]

[Redbone]

Well I finally figured out how to load Linux onto the primary slave IDE Drive, hdb, and get it to boot without using a floppy. Not too difficult really. The key is to update lilo.conf. Here is my current, working, version :

# LILO configuration created by QuickInst 21 Sun Sep 16 00:07:04 EDT 2001

boot = /dev/hdb
compact
disk=/dev/hda
bios=0x81
disk=/dev/hdb
bios=0x80
install=/boot/boot.b
delay = 5 # optional, for systems that boot very quickly
vga = normal # force sane state
root = current # use "current" root
image = /boot/vmlinuz
label = linux
root=/dev/hdb1

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.3-20mdk
label=243-20
root=/dev/hdb1
read-only
optional
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.3-20mdk.img

[ 16 September 2001: Message edited by: Redbone ]