Re: trouble with the boot-block..
> All this makes sense, of course. What I don't understand is
> how something got written to the MBR and why my floppy drive
> is ignored now. To clear my SCSI drives 1 and 3, I'll have to
> do a low-level format.
>From an earlier message, I gathered that you DID tell the installation
program to install lilo at least during one installation attempt. If
you did that then lilo installed the lilo boot loader code in the MBR.
When lilo does this, it creates some files in /boot/ directory including
a copy of the original boot block. Lilo csn then later be told to
'remove itself' and replace the original boot code. However, in your
case, you re-attempted initial installation which 'wipes out' the files
saved by lilo. Thus, there is no longer any way for lilo to restore the
original boot code since it really does not exist. So even if the
installation code authors examined the drive to look for a previous
installation of lilo, there is no way that they could 'uninstall' it
anyway.
In addition, many people have multiple installation of Linux on the same
machine (I usually have two or three myself). It would be a _real_
disaster for me if lilo removed the lilo boot code when I did a second
or third linux installation.
I am at a complete loss as to what linux could possibly have done to
make your floppy be ignored. As far as I know, recognizing and booting
from your floppy is an activity that takes place long before ANY linux
code is loaded and executed (you do have the CMOS set for A: then C: and
not the otherway around, yes?)
Actual low-level formatting of scsi drives is a pretty unusual activity.
Drives vary between just plain ignoring the command, immediately
returning an operation complete response, running a bad block scan, to
actually DOING a low level format. Many scsi drives actually can not be
low level formated without special (manufacture specific) software.
As I think I mentioned to Jean Pierre, my knowledge of
DOS could be stuffed into a thimble. At any rate, DOS
is gone, and /dev/fd0 is useless.
(I just knew there was something I liked about you!)
Last night I catenated /target/etc/lilo.conf to stdout
and saw something like what you've got below. But it
didn't do much good because I'm not familiar with the
file. Also, didn't find anything in the boot that came
with v1.3.
Can you tell me what to edit to what to get rid of lilo
from the master boot rec?
Short of the DOS FDISK/mbr I don't know of anything (simple) that you
can do to get rid of lilo at this point.
You can edit /etc/lilo.conf so that it looks something like this:
boot = /dev/sda
prompt
timeout = 50
compact
delay = 20
install = /boot/boot.b
map = /boot/map
vga = normal
image = /vmlinuz
root = /dev/sda3
label = Linux
read-only
other=/dev/sda1
table = /dev/sda
label = DOS
Substitute your drive designation for 'boot = /dev/sda' (but I think
that is correct for your system.
Substitute your drive/partition designation for 'root = /dev/sda3' of
your (attempted) linux installation.
Substitute your drive/partition disignation for 'other=dev/sda1' for the
location of your DOS partition (if you have one).
I think but am not positive that the 'table = /dev/sda' has to point to
the drive that contains the linux root filesystem (regardless of where
the dos partition is located).
After editing that file (/etc/lilo.conf) then run lilo itself:
lilo -t -r /target
The '-t' tells lilo to just tell you what it wants to do but not to
change anything. A '-v' tells lilo to be somewhat verbose.
The '-r /target' tells lilo to the directory '/target' as the 'root' for
its' operations (otherwise lilo would want to modify the ram filesystem
which would be a bit useless).
This should give you an output like:
root@gandalf:/home/wrl# lilo -q -t
Linux *
DOS
If you use the '-v' option then it might look something like this:
root@gandalf:/home/wrl# lilo -v -q
LILO version 20, Copyright 1992-1997 Werner Almesberger
Reading boot sector from /dev/hda
Global settings:
Delay before booting: 2.0 seconds
Command-line timeout: 5.0 seconds
Always enter boot prompt
Serial line access is disabled
No message for boot prompt
No default boot command line
Images:
Linux *
No password
Boot command-line won't be locked
No single-key activation
VGA mode: 9 (0x0009)
Kernel is loaded "high", at 0x00100000
No initial RAM disk
No fallback
Options: "ro root=304"
DOS
No password
Boot command-line won't be locked
No single-key activation
No fallback
(Your lilo version is probably different than mine so the message may
well not be an exact match.
If what you get does look pretty much like the above (and in particular
lilo does not report any errors) then type:
lilo -r /target
Lilo should then correctly install itself but remember the boot.b file
is NOT valid since it is just a copy of what you have right now (I don't
recall that lilo attempts to do any verification of the existing boot
block--really don't see any way that it can since one's present boot
block might not be a DOS boot block to start with).
--
best,
-bill
bleach@BellSouth.net b.leach@Worldnet.att.net
b.leach@usa.net LinuxPC@Hotmail.com
from a 1996 Micro$loth ad campaign:
"The less you know about computers the more you want Micro$oft!"
See! They do get some things right!
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