Re: Lilo Config

["Christopher S. Swingley" <cswingle@iarc.uaf.edu>]

> In the past, I've always just booted Debian off of a floppy, but this time I
> want to use LILO to boot Debian or Win95 depending on what I want.  If I
> want to use LILO, do I just choose 'Make bootable form hard disk' at the
> last step of Debian 2.1 Slink, or do I have to do something else.  

You will have to modify your /etc/lilo.conf file and then run /sbin/lilo
in order to add the DOS choice to your LILO options.  On my system I
have two IDE hard drives (/dev/hda and /dev/hdb) with Windows using all
of /dev/hda1, Linux on /dev/hdb1, swap on /dev/hdb2, and Windows on 
/dev/hdb3).  Here's what my /etc/lilo.conf looks like: (without the 
comments)

    boot=/dev/hda           # Where I'm booting from.
    compact
    prompt                  # Let the user choose OS
    timeout=60
    default=dos             # Use dos by default (for my wife :) )
    map=/boot/map
    install=/boot/boot.b
    image=/vmlinuz          # Linux setup with root on /dev/hdb1
            root=/dev/hdb1
            label=lnx
            read-only
    other=/dev/hda1         # DOS setup with root on /dev/hda1
            label=dos

> Is it possible to lose any information on my C: (windows) if I do install 
> LILO on it?

Yes it is, so be very careful, especially with the first line.  I once
put boot=/dev/hda1 instead of boot=/dev/hda.  This put LILO over the
partition information on my DOS disk, which meant I couldn't access
the drive at all.  boot=/dev/hda puts LILO in the master boot record,
where it should go.

Before you do anything (i.e. run /sbin/lilo) make a backup of your master
boot record on a floppy:

    dd if=/dev/hda of=/mnt/floppy/mbr bs=512 count=1

This way if anything goes wrong you can boot Linux from your boot floppy,
mount the floppy on /mnt/floppy and restore the MBR:

    dd if=/mnt/floppy/mbr of=/dev/hda bs-512 count=1

Also, read /usr/share/doc/lilo/Manual.txt  It'll save your butt one day.

Chris
-- 
Christopher S. Swingley           tel: 907-474-2689 fax: 474-2643
930 Koyukuk Drive, Suite 408C     email: cswingle@iarc.uaf.edu
University of Alaska Fairbanks    www.frontier.iarc.uaf.edu:8080/
Fairbanks, AK  99775                     ~cswingle

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