Lilo config I think

[bdd]

I have a serious, and extremely urgent problem. I am new to linux, i use windows on the same machine (on my primary hard drive. I run linux on my secondary drive.) there is something wrong, probably with my lilo. it will load linux fine, except during the graphical startup or even text start up it fails to mount the filesystems, but runs linux regardless. but my real problem is in the Lilo prompt at boot. one of the options is windows, but when i go to windows it will not load windows, all that happens is a little DOS-looking text at the very top of the screen that says Loading windows. but it never loads. I use windows quite frequently for work and school, and so i need to have access to it. Any help is appreciated, please keep in mind that i am a linux noobie. and i have very little skill with its configuration. I reinstalled windows, but that did not help at all, it still will not boot up when selected at the lilo prompt. bdd@end-war.com
p.s. windows loaded fine until yesterday.

[bwkaz]

Can you post the contents of /etc/lilo.conf? Just cat /etc/lilo.conf into a terminal, and either paste the file here or use some paper or something.

[bdd]

ok i reinstalled linux, and it is now working correctly, so i guess the contents of lilo.conf wouldnt be of much help anymore, thanks, and also thanks for replying

[bwkaz]

Hey, well at least it works now... ;)

[bdd]

ok after reinstalling mandrake 8.2 i ran it and during the boot sequence, it fails to mount filesystems, the lilo prompt will let me load windows, or linux, by choice however, but the linux loads slowly and says it is failing to mount filesystems
that is up with that?
thanks again

[mdwatts]

What filesystems is it failing to mount?

Could you also tell us a bit about your partition setup etc.?

[bdd]

I,m not sure, it says mounting loacl filesystems, {FAILED}
Mounting other filesystems {FAILED}

i dont get it!

I have two hard drives, one 80 gb and one 40 gb. the 80 gig drive is my windows xp drive. it is only 2 partitions.

the 40 gig drive is partitioned into two main partitions, 20 gigs each.
one 20 gig drive is also used for windows, (it is for all of my music and other multimedia) the last 20 gig partition is 10 for mandrake, and 10 for red hat, however i removed the redhat, so now it is 20 for mandrake. hope this helps .
thanks
bdd@end-war.com

[bwkaz]

Gotta love those informative init script messages... ;)

What filesystem did you tell Mandrake's installer to use for each partition that you created when you installed it? Did you also give a mount point for each Windows partition you want to access?

If you can get to it, the contents of /etc/fstab (in addition to the above info) would help a little.

[sharth]

its probably trying to load nonexistant drives, check /etc/fstab to see what is trying to be mounted.

[bdd]

here is the contents of my /etc/fstab file:


/dev/hdb6 / ext3 defaults 1 1
none /dev/pts devpts mode=0620 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
/dev/hdb8 /home ext3 defaults 1 2
/mnt/cdrom /mnt/cdrom supermount dev=/dev/scd0,fs=iso9660,ro,--,iocharset=iso8859-1 0 0
/mnt/cdrom2 /mnt/cdrom2 supermount dev=/dev/hdd,fs=iso9660,ro,--,iocharset=iso8859-1 0 0
/mnt/floppy /mnt/floppy supermount dev=/dev/sdb,fs=vfat,--,iocharset=iso8859-1,umask=0,sync,codepage=850 0 0
/mnt/floppy2 /mnt/floppy2 supermount dev=/dev/fd0,fs=vfat,--,iocharset=iso8859-1,umask=0,sync,codepage=850 0 0
/dev/hda1 /mnt/win_c vfat iocharset=iso8859-1,umask=0,codepage=850 0 0
/dev/hdb1 /mnt/win_c2 vfat iocharset=iso8859-1,umask=0,codepage=850 0 0
/dev/hdb5 /mnt/win_d ext2 iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850 0 0
/mnt/zip /mnt/zip supermount dev=/dev/sda4,fs=vfat,--,iocharset=iso8859-1,umask=0,codepage=850 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/hdb7 swap swap defaults 0 0

im not too sure where the problems lie, by the way, thanks for everything. you people are really helping me out.
I had the installer install onto hdb6 i believe, also i have a dvd/cd/cd-r burner, that it fails to load as well. any help is appreciated. thanks again
bdd@end-war.com