On Mon, 13 Mar 2000, Anthony Green wrote:
> Just installed a new harddrive and new clean Debian install. Although
> configuring Lilo ... when my pc boots all I get is "LI" of the usual
> "LILO:" prompt and lilo just halts.
That generally means he loader is working fine, but it can't read the file
specified in the configuration file.
> My /hda1 partition is DOS .. so I put in a DOS bootdisk ... fdisk /mbr
> to clean the mbr and then tried resetting up lilo again from linux (via
> bootdisk) and same thing happened.
>
> My Linux / partition is on /dev/hdd1 .. and when using fdisk to view the
> partition table it gave me a warning re lilo may not work with it due to
> cylinders > 1024? But my old hd had 4000+ cylinders and it worked fine ..
> .. lilo is installed on /dev/hda though so it shouldnt matter i thought.
OK - basically, your BIOS is too old, and is not reporting the correct
data to the OS.
Because you're trying to load Linux off a disk which LILO can't read
properly, it's failing {hence the LI - the loader works, but it can't
access the specified drive with your kernel image on it}.
You have a few options.
1) Upgrade your motherboard's BIOS to a more recent version which DOES do
large drives properly.
2) Use one of the DOS based loaders to load your kernel - EG loadlin.exe
under DOS - and copy your kernel to the DOS drive, so it can be loaded
properly
3) Create an ext2 partition on your C: drive {hell, D: or E: would do also
- they're all small enough that LILO won't have a problem with them} by
blowing away the swap file you have on this drive and using it as your
boot partition - reinstall, but specify this partition as /boot {for
Redhat, at least - not sure of other distros} and install your kernel
files in there instead of on your big F: drive.
4) Boot from a floppy when you want to go into Linux - kernel on floppy,
no problem for LILO.
Of the four options, I'd use the first if possible, then the third
personally - because it's easier {for me} than trying to figure out
loadlin.
So, you'd end up with partition tables which look something like this.
>fdisk /dev/hda
Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/hda: 32 heads, 63 sectors, 827 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2016 * 512 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 488 491872+ 6 FAT16
/dev/hda2 489 519 31248 83 Linux
Command (m for help): q
>fdisk /dev/hdd
The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 16383.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
(e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)
Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/hdd: 16 heads, 63 sectors, 16383 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdd1 1 2032 1024096+ 83 Linux
/dev/hdd2 2033 3048 512064 83 Linux
/dev/hdd3 3049 4064 512064 83 Linux
/dev/hdd4 4065 16383 6208776 5 Extended
/dev/hdd5 4065 5080 512032+ 83 Linux
/dev/hdd6 5081 5145 32000 82 Linux Swap
Command (m for help): q
Now - since I'm not sure how big your swap partition is, and how much
space you've got lying around on the C: drive, this might not be big
enough - you should have a minimum of say 30 meg {allows a couple of
kernels and other assorted stuff} for the /boot partition.
If you've got enough space fine - if not, then Partition Magic it until
you do.
Hope this helps some.
DaZZa
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