LILO doesn't work on a HDD partition > 1024 cylinders???

[BustaGroove]

Hi People,

I just installed linux (Red Hat 7.0) onto my brand new box (Athlon 1GHz, 256MB Ram etc etc) and am very pleased with the way linux utilises the most out of the computer (I can use use 6 desktops with no problems at all, unlike the 233MMX system I had which struggled to use 4).

Anyway, back to the problem. I created a 5 gig partition on my 20 gig HDD and installed linux onto the 5 gig partition. The problem is that LILO won't work as the partition is more than 1024 cylinders. This is kind of a problem as I have to use a bootdisk to run linux (which is a bummer as boottime is damn slow with a conventional floppy).

My question is this, can I get LILO to work or is there another boot manager I can install in order to boot into linux without using a dreaded floppy?

Thanks in advanced!

[idealego]

Grab the latest copy of lilo since it doesn't have this problem. You can also try grub which is what I use.

[The King Ant]

Lilo will boot to Linux as long as the kernel image is below the 1024th cylinder. So... if the 5gig drive is the last partition on your drive (the last quarter of the cylinders), I'd make sure you have a /boot partition which comes first, then you should be okay.

Or, if you don't want to reinstall, you can just get a newer version of lilo, which fixes this limitation.

[Stormrider888]

Ok, try this:
Boot Linux using your bootdisk, go to /etc, open linux.conf , then edit that file using a text editor. put the line "LBA32" into your Linux boot entry. For example my file looks like this:
boot = /dev/hda5
timeout = 50
compact
prompt
message = /boot/message
default = linux
vga = normal
read-only
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
LBA32
image = /boot/vmlinuz-2.2.16-22
label = linux
root = /dev/hda4
other = /dev/hda1
label = dos
Hope it helps!

[Stormrider888]

Oh , didnt read the whole text, u have to use a second bootmanager (like bootmagic), which have to be installed on ´the mbr.
Using the bootmanager, u can boot into the /boot partition

[Bradmont]

Ahhh... new lilo no cylendar limit... so that's why...

I just upgraded from redhat 7 to debian 2.2r2 ( http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/wink.gif), and in the install, just for the hek of it, I hit 'install lilo'... didn't get any errors, which I thought was wierd, but went ahead and made a boot disk.

After doing some stuff in linux, I wanted to boot into windows to go online (stupid winmodem... oh well... broadband next week), so I removed the boot disk, and, to my suprise, I saw the word 'LILO' on the screen... which scared me at first. I then waited, and, to my jaw-dropping joy, Linux booted! "WTF?" I thought... so I went and read /etc/lilo.conf (about which I knew very little at the time... ~5 minutes ago), added my windows install by using the provided template, and BAM!!! floppyless dual-boot.
Now I'm very happy.

[Lorithar]

*chuckles*


and pats Bradmont on the back ....
HUNDREDS would consider you charmed.

[Bradmont]

The best thing is that stuff like this happens to me all the time http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/wink.gif.