Re: booting with lilo win2k

[Bob McGowan <rmcgowan@veritas.com>]

NTLDR is a file which should be in the root directory of the "system"
disk (MS calls the disk with system files like boot.ini, NTLDR etc. the
system disk).  This disk is the one the BIOS will look to first for
booting.  This may _not_ be the disk which has the Windows files on it
(MS calls the disk containing the Windows directory /winnt the "boot"
disk - such weird logic ;-(

In a simple NT install, the "system" and "boot" will end up in the same
partition, but if you had another OS (DOS, OS2...) and decided to put NT
in a different partition, the two would then be separate.

This is just a guess on my part, but you may actually need to have
"other=" pointing somewhere else.  If you have support in your kernel
for NTFS and/or FAT/VFAT, you could try mounting the Windows/DOS
filesystems you have and look for the one which has NTLDR on it.

Another possibility is that NTLDR is actually missing (as in
accidentally deleted), in which case you might be able to get things
working by copying NTLDR from another NT system.  If the  place it
should be is NTFS formatted, you'll need some way to mount and write to
an NTFS filesystem, see http://www.sysinternals.com/ for help (it'll
cost, but may be worthwhile if your NT stuff is critical).

To help identify the correct partition/filesystem, you should find these
files in addition to NTLDR (size aobut 155K):  autoexec.bat: size=0
(usually); boot.ini: size=variable, app. 280-300 bytes; config.sys:
size=0; io.sys: size=0; msdos.sys: size=0; ntdetect.com: size app. 25K.

I hope this is helpful.

Arcady Genkin wrote:
> 
> William Jensen <jensenb@bodach.com> writes:
> 
> > other=/dev/hda3  <-- notice hda3, make sure that yours points to the
> > label=win          correct partition..ie is win2k really on hda1?
> 
> That's funny.  Is your /dev/hda3 an NTFS partition?  I have the
> following in my lilo.conf:
> 
> ,----[ lilo.conf ]
> | boot=/dev/hda
> | install=/boot/boot.b
> | map=/boot/map
> | prompt
> | vga = normal
> | linear
> |
> | image = /zImage
> |   root = /dev/hdd2
> |   label = linux
> |   append = "mem=96M"
> |   read-only
> |
> | other = /dev/hda1
> |   label = win
> |   table = /dev/hda
> `----
> 
> LILO comes up OK at boot time, and boots linux just fine.  If I choose
> `win', then it attempts to boot Win, but I see a message:
> `NTLDR is missing.  Press Cntrl+Alt+Delete.'
> 
> win2k *is* on /dev/hda1, which I verified with fdisk just now.
> 
> I tried removing the `table=/dev/hda' option, but it made no
> difference.
> 
> Any further ideas?
> --
> Arcady Genkin
> Don't read everything you believe.
> 
> --
> Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe debian-user-request@lists.debian.org < /dev/null

-- 
Bob McGowan
Staff Software Quality Engineer
VERITAS Software
rmcgowan@veritas.com