Burak Serdar writes:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 28 Feb 2000, Burak Serdar wrote:
>>
>> > I have two 10 GB harddisks, and I am trying to install lilo to the
>> > second one. The boot partition is the first partition, and it is 40 MB,
>> > so this should satisfy the 1024 cylinder requirement. I first tried
>> > booting after a Redhat 6.1 install, it stopped at LI. Then, after
>> > reading some LILO docs, I tried the 'linear' option, with the same
>> > response. Then I tried to enter the disk geometry as seen on bios setup
>> > (sec=63, head=255, cyl=1216). It still stops at LI. I really don't want
>> > to use LOADLIN. Any ideas?
>>
>> I am sorry, none. You haven't given me any idea of what specifically
>> you are trying to do, or how you are going about doing it. I am 99.7%
>
>I am trying to install linux to the second harddisk, and at the same try
>install LILO to the second harddisk and make the machine boot from D, so that
>I don't touch the C drive.
I assume you plan to do this by changing the BIOS settings to look for
a boot record on the second disk first.
I've been trying to set up this kind of arrangement recently. First
of all, let me say that I have not YET succeeded (although I'm pretty
sure I know how to fix the remaining problem), so you should take care
if you choose to listen to what I'm saying here. I'm just passing on
what I've gleaned from my experience so far. You may want to wait for
someone else to comment before acting on it.
In my configuration, I was trying to boot from /dev/hdc, but I'll cast
it in terms of /dev/hdb for the purposes of this mail.
The trick to bear in mind is to keep the distinction between what LILO
is doing at Boot time separate from what the command /sbin/lilo is
doing when it is run, with respect to disk assignments.
>From the kernel's point of view (and /sbin/lilo), a disk which is
normally on /dev/hdb does not suddenly change to /dev/hda just because
you happen to have booted from it.
Thus, in lilo.conf, if your kernel image is in /boot/vmlinux, where
/boot is in some partition on /dev/hdb, you don't need to try to tell
lilo anything different.
This also means you shouldn't attempt to 'trick' /etc/fstab into
thinking that / is on /dev/hda when it's really on /dev/hdb (a mistake
I made, and 'got away' with because I specified /dev/hda6 when there
was no such partition on that drive - the kernel panic'd because it
couldn't work out how to mount / , making the nature of the problem
obvious once I actually studied the messages).
You DO need to tell lilo that you want to boot from /dev/hdb (as you
have done, "boot=/dev/hdb").
However, there is one change that needs to be made, related to the
interaction between LILO (the boot loader) and the BIOS. It appears
that BIOS reports the booting disk to LILO as '0x80', which is
normally /dev/hda. However, if you are booting from /dev/hdb, then
that disk is reported as '0x80', not /dev/hda (which presumably gets
reported as '0x81', but that's not relevant right now). The upshot of
this is that, when running /sbin/lilo on a system for which 0x80 is
/dev/hda, LILO will get confused when it tries to resolve the disk
it's booting from based on the BIOS report. The way to resolve this
confusion is to use the bios= parameter of the disk= keyword, i.e.
disk=/dev/hdb
bios=0x80 # tell LILO this is the real boot disk
And yes, I did get this info from the looong lilo doco (though I
initially misinterpreted it and attempted to change too much).
Finally, if you are running /sbin/lilo on a system currently booted
from /dev/hda, then it is very likely you will need to use the -r
option of /sbin/lilo,; on the basis that your /dev/hdb drive is
mounted on /mnt, such that your files are /mnt/etc/lilo.conf,
/mnt/boot, /mnt/vmlinuz, etc., you need to remember to run
"/sbin/lilo -r /mnt"
so that the filenames in lilo.conf are correctly resolved relative to
what WILL be the root when the system is booted on the other drive.
(For those interested, this is the step I haven't got around to trying
due to pressure of time).
>> If you will show me /etc/fstab and /etc/lilo.conf for however many linux
>> systems you are trying to boot, and whatever else common sense may
>> suggest to you I will try to be a little more helpful.
>
>Since I retried the installation again with a different partition, things
>have changed and I cannot send you those. But, here's what I have for
>lilo.conf:
>
>boot=/dev/hdb1
>map=/boot/map
>install=/boot/boot.b
>prompt
>timeout=50
>default=linux
>linear (I also tried without this, and with lba32)
linear is probably unnecessary.
>disk=dev/hdb
> sectors=63
> heads=255
> cylinders=1216
You shouldn't need this disk geometry stuff (but you will need the
bios= parameter, see above). The normal rules about keeping your boot
partition below 1024 cylinders apply, of course.
>image=/boot/vmlinuz....
> label=linux
> initd=/boot/initrd...
> read-only
> root=/dev/hdb10
>
>other=....
>
>I cannot give what fstab looks like for my current state (because I have to
>reinstall the thing), but this is what I tried last time:
>
>/dev/hdb1 /boot ext2 40 Megs
>/dev/hdb5 swap ~300Megs
>/dev/hdb6 / ext2 rest of it (~9Megs)
This looks a reasonable fstab.
Like I said at the beginning, I haven't the certainty of a successful
config to back up what I've said, so careful.
David
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