Triple-boot with Win98, 2000 and Mandrake 7.2 - LILO probs!

[Robster]

OK, let me first detail how my system is set up.

Drive 1 Partitions:
Win 98 (Pri. DOS)
Win 2000 (Ext. Dos Logical)
Files (Ext. Dos Logical)
Software (Ext. Dos Logical)

Drive 2 Partitions:
Linux /
Linux Swap
Linux Home

Both drives are 45gb IBMs and sit on the ATA/66 controller ports on my Asus CUBX mobo. My CD and CD-RW drives sit on the standard IDE controllers.

Mandrake 7.2 installed fine. I followed the LittleWhiteDog instructions on installing LILO to the / partition and so on...

Install LILO to / partition (hdg1)
Copy boot sector of Linux into floppy (linux.bin)
Copy Linux.bin onto C: drive (Win 98 partition)
Edit boot.ini to add in the Linux boot option


All I get when selecting Linux from the boot menu is 'LI' - and nothing else. Linux boots perfectly from the floppy boot disk created during installation - no problem there at all. And it runs well too.

On advice from a couple of the members here, I edited lilo.conf to include the 'linear' option. Went through the same procedure again, exactly the same result - 'LI' and nothing more.

Now - if I can boot from floppy, why not with the above method? I don't want to start overwriting the MBR (Grub managed to screw that up on a previous install) or getting into third-party bootloaders if at all possible. The LittleWhiteDog method is simple and easy to remove - if only I could get it to work.

Anbody have any idea what is going on?

[ 09 March 2001: Message edited by: Robster ]

[ShadowGoblin]

Make sure that your linux root partition is not on or past,the 1024 cylinder on you hard drive.It must be before that.And your swap file is 5 megs lager than 128 megs and after the 1024 cylinder.If you don`t know what this 1024 cylinder is, get Partition Magic 6.

Also look up the rpms(drivers to windows users)for all and I mean all you hardware an get the latest.next cut an paste to your rpm file on you cdr install disk.This way when you install all your hardware will be supported.


had same problem

[slapNUT]

Checking the /usr/doc/lilo*/README there are only too options if you have your Linux installed completely on the second hard drive:
1 Bootdisk... yuk!
2 change... change is good!

I dont have my lilo/README handy but I think it would be something like this

image=/boot/vmlinuz
root=/dev/hdb1
label=Linux
boot=/boot/boot.b
change
partition=0x80
to=0x81
partition=0x81
to=0x80

The lilo change command can be used in this way tell the bios to treat hda/(hd0) like hdb/(hd1) and visa versa. As the README states this will only work on an OS that relys totally on the bios for read/write to the hard drives. I use this to boot Windows98 & QNXRTOS.
Before trying this, read the README, like I said mines at home and I'm relying on an old outdated "grey-matter" thinker.

[ 10 March 2001: Message edited by: slapNUT ]

[kubfish]

Doesn't MDK come with Grub? If so try that. It doesn't have the block limitations like lilo and it acts the same.

[kubfish]

opps sorry I didn't read the part about your grub problems :)

[slapNUT]

Also lilo no longer has the 1024 cylinder limit. I'm using lilo-21.6.1 and my /boot is after a 14G hda1 partition. I think it's up to lilo-21.7 now.

[bdl]

Did you remember to run '/sbin/lilo' after making changes to your lilo.conf? Have you tried the 'lba32' option in lieu of 'linear'? They are mutually exclusive, so you can only use one at a time. Other than that, it may be a problem of bootstrapping linux from that particular controller; you might consider removing the CD's and making your ATA66 controller channels ide0 and ide1 (effectively changing hde into hda and so forth). Other than that, use a boot floppy.... Luck!

[slowlearner]

Oh please forgive me for this lazy answer. I can see you prefer doing things from the CL, BUT Mandrake has a really easy to use graphical(sorry :eek: ) LiLo setup in Drakconf. (sorry sorry sorry)

[Robster]

Sorry I haven't come back sooner. I've been working on this ALL DAY! I refused to give up!

All is now working just how I wanted it. Here's how...

1. Back up the whole of drive 1 with Ghost

2. Use DiskDrake (during install) to resize the last FAT32 partition on Drive 1. I added in a 32mb partition right at the end of the disc and used it to mount /boot during installation

3. Use DiskDrake to set up /, swap and /home partitions on Drive 2

4. Install Mandrake using the above partitions

5. When bootloader install came up, installed Lilo to hde8 - the boot partition mentioned above

6. Boot Mandrake from floppy and perform the dd... comand to extract the boot sector to floppy

7. Reboot machine into Windows 98 and copy linux.bin file from floppy to C:\

8. Edit C:\boot.ini to include the Mandrake option pointing at C:\Linux.bin

9. Reboot and try all OSs!

This works pefectly on my setup. The original problem on mine was obviously that the machine could not boot anything off Drive 2. Having /boot on Drive 1 - even at the end of the disc - did the trick! Had it not workwd at end of the Drive I would have tried it at the beginning.

Thanks for all the advice.
Rob


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