Re: LILO Dual-boot blues

[ajlewis2@intac.com]

In linux.debian.user, you wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
>   I am installing a dual-boot Linux/Win2K machine for a graduate student 
> at the University I work at and I am having a major problem with LILO. 
>  The machine is a Gateway2000 E-4200.  I have woody installed on 
> /dev/hdb with /dev/hdb2 as the root of the filesystemand /dev/hdb1 as 
> the /boot partition.  Windows 2000 is installed on /dev/hda1.  I have 
> the LILO bootstrapper installed in the MBR of /dev/hda.  The 
> /etc/lilo.conf is unchanged from what debconf set up during installation.
> 
>   What happens when I try to boot the system is this ... nothing at all. 
>  The POST runs the screen blanks and the cursor sits flashing in the 
> upper left-hand corner of the screen.  I have used dd to copy the MBR of 
> /dev/hda to a file, looked at it with ghex, and it appears to be a valid 
> LILO bootstrap program.
> 
>   My question is this ... does anyone have any experience with 
> dual-booting on the Gateway E-4200?  Does anyone know if the ROM-BIOS on 
> that machine supports booting off of anything but BIOS Device 0x80 
> (Primary Master IDE device)?  I have pored over the Dual-Boot-HOWTOs and 
> even compared /etc/lilo.conf to the /etc/lilo.conf on my sarge box at 
> home (dual-boot Debian testing/Win95), all to no avail.  The system 
> boots up just fine using my Debian CD1 with "rescue root=/dev/hdb2" 
> typed in at the "boot:" prompt, so it doesn't appear to be 
> filesystem-related.  It just appears that the system is refusing to run 
> the bootstrapper for LILO.
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> 
> ninewands
> 


The lilo manual says that having no letters of the word LILO appear means
that either LILO is not installed or the partition that it is installed on
is not active.

Can you do 'fdisk -l' and see if /dev/hda is marked bootable and also check
/etc/lilo.conf to be sure that it says boot=/dev/hda?  I'm thinking
lilo.conf says that, because when you boot, Windows doesn't boot.  If that
had not been written over, I'd think that it would - I assume that it used
to.

Anita