* Re: Getting dos hard drive to boot from lilo
Getting dos hard drive to boot from lilo Cheryl Homiak
@ ` L. C. Robinson
` Gil Andre
1 sibling, 0 replies; 5+ messages in thread
From: L. C. Robinson @ UTC (permalink / raw)
To: blinux-list
On Thu, 6 Dec 2001, Cheryl Homiak wrote:
> We have now moved my dos hard drive to hdb (it was hdd before).
> I was hoping not to have to boot in from floppy any more, but
> to use lilo as I did when I had a windows os on hdb. I can boot
> in with a floppy, and I can mount hdb1 and it is my dos hard
> drive. Both linux cfdisk and dos fdisk show it as bootable.
It's unclear where lilo is installed. The boot flag should be on
the partition where you have installed lilo (boot=/dev/hd??),
unless you have put lilo on the MBR (the Master Boot Record --
probably on /dev/hda, except newer BIOSes can be configured to
point elsewhere), in which case the boot flag is irrelevant. If
you have had lilo on /dev/hda at any time in the past, you cannot
change to, say, the root or /boot partition (which is usually
where one would expect it, _not_ on drive hdb), until you first
restore the original dos style MBR. The original MBR can then
honor your boot flag, so that your lilo install on another
partition can work.
If this seems to be the source of the problem, the easiest way
out is probably to just go with lilo on the MBR, by making sure
you have in the global options:
boot = /dev/hda
and rerun lilo.
Alternatively, you can put the MBR back, by running the MS-DOS
fdisk with the /mbr switch (be very careful):
fdisk /mbr
Lilo also tries to backup the MBR, and there is a lilo option to
restore it, if the original backup file is still there.
If the above doesn't help, you may need to run lilo very
verbosely in the test mode and carefully inspect the output:
lilo -t -v -v -v > lilo.test.output
less lilo.test.output
Three -v options is probably about all you can stand, or would need,
and two might be enough, and a lot less messy. Lilo won't
actually change anything in test (-t) mode, so you can make as
many tests as you want, till you're satisfied, then remove the
-t and extra -v options to actually write the disk.
> I've also used map-drive to switch the drives, but it still
> won't boot. Not a huge problem, as I can go on booting from
> floppy to dos as before, but I would like to know why this
> won't work. The relevant part of my lilo.conf is included
> below.
I checked the manual, and can't spot any errors in this next
part:
> other=/dev/hdb1
> table=/dev/hdb
> label=dos
> # restricted
> alias=3
> map-drive = 0x80
> to = 0x81
> map-drive = 0x81
> to = 0x80
Hope this helps, LCR
--
L. C. Robinson
reply to no_spam+munged_lcr@onewest.net.invalid
People buy MicroShaft for compatibility, but get incompatibility and
instability instead. This is award winning "innovation". Find
out how MS holds your data hostage with "The *Lens*"; see
"CyberSnare" at http://www.netaction.org/msoft/cybersnare.html
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 5+ messages in thread
* Re: Getting dos hard drive to boot from lilo
Getting dos hard drive to boot from lilo Cheryl Homiak
` L. C. Robinson
@ ` Gil Andre
` L. C. Robinson
1 sibling, 1 reply; 5+ messages in thread
From: Gil Andre @ UTC (permalink / raw)
To: blinux-list
Cheryl,
I am not 100% sure I understand your problem, so what I write
below may be completely wrong... As far as I understand it,
you are trying to boot DOS (or Windows) from /dev/hdb_, with
Linux probably installed on /dev/hda_
This is a limitation of DOS/Windows systems: they can only be
booted from the first hard disk of your machine (/dev/hda_).
These operating systems simply assume they are the first, only
and/or most important operating systems on your hard disk and
will simply refuse to boot from any other drive.
Whether this behavior is a bug or a feature of Windows systems
is left as an exercise to the reader... <grin>
I think the only way out of your problem would be to install
your Windows hard disk as the first disk in your machine and
move the Linux hard disk in another position, since Linux
does not have the limitations of Windows. A very good source
of information for this is the Lilo mini-howto, that you'll
find at the following address:
http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/Multiboot-with-LILO.html
Another good source of information is the hard disk upgrade
"howto":
http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/Hard-Disk-Upgrade/
And a final source of info would be the Multiple OS howto:
http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/MultiOS-HOWTO.html
Hope this helps!
_______________________________________________
Gil Andre -- Technical Writer -- Knox Software
gandre@arkeia.com
_______________________________________________
On Thu, 6 Dec 2001 06:51:11 -0600 (CST)
Cheryl Homiak <chomiak@chartermi.net> wrote:
> We have now moved my dos hard drive to hdb (it was hdd before). I was
> hoping not to have to boot in from floppy any more, but to use lilo as I
> did when I had a windows os on hdb. I can boot in with a floppy, and I can
> mount hdb1 and it is my dos hard drive. Both linux cfdisk and dos fdisk
> show it as bootable. I've also used map-drive to switch the drives, but it
> still won't boot. Not a huge problem, as I can go on booting from floppy
> to dos as before, but I would like to know why this won't work. The
> relevant part of my lilo.conf is included below.
> Thanks.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 5+ messages in thread