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Re: How to make SCSI only bootup



On Fri, Mar 17, 2000 at 12:56:28PM +0000, David Wright was only 
   escaped alone to tell thee:

> The BIOS needs to be able to read from the boot device without any
> assistance from linux. If you're getting 2FA, then that task is done.
> Now lilo needs to read the kernel from the partition where it has been
> told it is. I think that's what's failing.

It's easy to make mistakes with fdisk your first time: I, for some reason,
decided at installation that my linux swap partition needed to be bootable.
<shrug>

> What worked for *me* in this instance was putting linear in lilo.conf
> and changing boot=/dev/hda2 to boot=/dev/hda . This puts lilo in the
> master boot record of the disk instead of the boot sector of the
> 2nd partition. (You'll be using sd, not hd, and maybe a different
> partition number.)

I know the aha-2940 writes its own BIOS into my PC's memory if no IDE drives
are installed. This makes installation of OS/2 (don't laugh, this was a while 
ago...), and Linux and presumably all non-crippleware OS's MUCH easier, as my 
BIOS does not have to support IDE's st1506 (? did I remember that aright?)
legacy; allowing me <attitude type=smug> to boot from my 2nd HD's second 
logical partition. </attitude>

Go into fdisk and use the 'p' command on your drives and WRITE this info 
down. When primary, logical and extended partitions mix the numbering scheme
gets confusing and non-obvious FAST--easy to make a mistake like mine above.
(Not that I'm being defensive :) Below is a paste of my partitions on sda
and sdb, .7 and 8.5 gig drives, showing how the numbering skips to 5 when
you start making only logical partitions.

I don't know if the DPT card does this BIOS repair. Even with IDE-compatible 
HD addressing the 'linear' lilo.conf option may not be necessary as long as 
the boot partition is below cyl. 1024.

You asked if the disk has an MBR, THE master boot record of partitions for
the whole disk, as opposed to mbr's, each partitions' layout data. Each drive 
always does, unless corrupted. To boot into lilo, it must go there: on a 
SCSI system it would be boot=/dev/sda. NO number means it points to the MBR;
"sda1" is the first partition which has AN mbr, but not THE drive MBR--that 
is at "sda"; see my lilo.conf below.


----lilo.conf----

boot=/dev/sda
root=/dev/sdb6
install=/boot/boot.b
map=/boot/map
compact
vga=normal
prompt
timeout=100
verbose=3
read-only
image=/vmlinuz
        label=linux
image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.0.36
        label=old
other=/dev/sda1
        label=dos
        table=/dev/sda

----disk partitions----

Disk /dev/sda: 64 heads, 32 sectors, 699 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 bytes

   Device Boot   Start      End   Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        1      629   644080    b  Win95 FAT32
/dev/sda2          630      699    71680    5  Extended
/dev/sda5          630      699    71664   82  Linux swap

/dev/sdb1            1     1105  8875881    5  Extended
/dev/sdb5            1       38   305172    c  Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sdb6   *       39      357  2562336   83  Linux native
/dev/sdb7          358      612  2048256   83  Linux native
/dev/sdb8          613      931  2562336   83  Linux native
/dev/sdb9          932     1007   610438+  83  Linux native
/dev/sdb10        1008     1105   787153+  83  Linux native

-- 
bedlam@concentric.net  ||  http://www.concentric.net/~bedlam
Though nothing is wasted, everything is spent. -- Annie Dillard
But to live outside the law you must be honest.... -- Bob Dylan


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