Thomas Chadwick wrote:
From: Marty To: debian-user@lists.debian.org Subject: Re: Trouble with LILO... Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 14:47:28 -0400 Thomas Chadwick wrote:[snip]I've run into this problem (bug?) many times, and the only consistent work around I've found is to temporarily disconnect drives other than one containing the root partition, boot from a rescue floppy and use the linux command line parameter root=/dev/[...]. In your case I would use the following command line (boot:) linux root=/dev/hdc1 There is probably a more elegant (correct?) way to do it, but I've not found it.Which, in principle, is no different than the method I described, in which I boot into Windows and then jump into Debian with loadlin.
I was worried you might misinterpret it that way. I was not clear. (Note the word "temporary.") The point of booting by floppy with the target root partition as the "first drive" (as defined by the BIOS) is that lilo always seems to work as I expect it to in that configuration. A tip that might be handy is to use enough -v's (verbose flags) as lilo arguments to deduce why it's not working the way you expect.
Well, I played around with it some more. On a whim, I tried unplugging the 120GB drive entirely, and moved my 545MB HDD (which boots Windows 98) from the Primary Master position to the Secondary Master position.Much to my chagrin, I discovered that it will not boot (note that I fiddled with my BIOS settings and tried every conceivable combination of 1st/2nd/3rd boot device).I guess there's just something about my MOBO that doesn't like booting from anything but the Primary Master.
Or it's windows, which is hard to move or copy around by design. Once the drive is self-booting you should be able to make it "slave" or "master" in either channel, assuming the BIOS supports that. (AFAIK only PCs from the 486 days or earlier do not.)
Oh well. -Tom