Dagnabit, why won't Linux boot?

[afropick]

I've looked thru archives, and seen this question asked before, but I can't seem to find anyone with this exact same (somewhat complicated) problem...

I'm attempting to have a triple-boot setup.
--Win98SE / Win2kPro / Linux-Mandrake 7.2--

Win98 installed okay...
Win2k installed okay...
Linux installed okay...

Now...
I want to use the Win2k boot manager, and I've read where others do it successfully (and it works fine so far with 98/2k).

Lilo is installed on the bootsector of the linux partition and not the mbr.

I edited boot.ini to say c:\bootsect.lnx="Linux-Mandrake 7.2"

I did a root login and tried both:
dd if=/dev/fd0 of=bootsect.lnx bs=512 count=1 (then copied it to the C: drive)
&
dd if=/mnt/windows of=bootsect.lnx bs=512 count=1
Neither of them will let "Linux-Mandrake 7.2" boot properly.

When I select that option, it will try to start, but just hangs at:
"stage1"

What am I doing wrong? I've been given advice to use bootpart, but I'm kinda confused on the correct syntax to use. Plus I just don't understand why this way tries to work but then stops.

Help me someone... please.

 

[CTho9305]

If LILO can boot win2k then it would be easy (I dont know whether or not you can) to just use LILO.

 

[Damaged]

Err, wait a minute...which drive is LILO installed on? I mean is it like /dev/hda6 or what? You should know this because you installed it. So, where ever you installed LILO is the if (in file) for that command. Meaning, for example, if LILO were installed on say /dev/hda6 then the command would be:

dd if=/dev/hda6 of=bootsect.lnx bs=512 count=1

Try that once. Not /dev/hda6, but substituting the proper drive for the one where you have LILO installed.

 

[afropick]

I'm sorry Damaged, I forgot to mention that I tried that way also. In my case LILO is on hdg1.

So I tried:
dd if=/dev/hdg1 of=bootsect.lnx bs=512 count=1
then move bootsect.lnx to the C: drive and it didn't work.

Btw, my understanding of the above command is that it takes the boot information "dd" and place it wherever you say with "if=" and that's why I had tried
dd if=/dev/hdg1
dd if=/dev/fd0
dd if=/mnt/windows
and it seems to do that part okay. It's just that when NT's bootloader tries to implement that info, it hangs at "stage1".

 

[Damaged]

Huh, got me hanging here unless it's an older version of LILO and it won't boot past the 1023rd cylinder.

Actually if means input file as I described, as opposed to taking input from STDIN (STandard INput, which is the console/terminal). So you're saying take the info from there, bs meaning BYTES in this case, the first 512 bytes, and count=BLOCKS, copy only BLOCKS input blocks. of means output file (duh! ) and means write the output to a file instead of STDOUT (STandard OUTput, again the console/terminal).

Oh wait.../dev/hdg1 you say? Is this a drive on some sort of IDE controller card?

Oh, and dd is for converting and copying files...any file(s).

 

[afropick]

Damaged...

I see why you are an Elite Member!!!

Thank you for the explanation. One of my biggest obstacles, i see, in learning linux will be not thinking in DOS conventions and getting a friggin book or something to learn these "new" linux conventions (do you have one you recommend, some of the archives suggest O'Reilly).

And yes, I have the ABIT KT7A-RAID mobo which has a RAID controller.

That's the other weird part. I have linux at the beginning of a completely seperate drive than win98 & win2k. So I wouldn't think the 1024 cylinder issue would be a problem.

Alas, it appears linux and I are not meant to be.

 

[Rob G.]

Afropick - I have *almost* the exact same problem.

Disk 1 partitions:
Win98
Win2000
Files
Software

Disk 2 partitions:
Mandrake /
Mandrake swap
Mandrake /home

Both drives sit on the ATA/66 IDE ports on my Asus CUBX mobo (CD and CD-RW sit on the usual IDEs). The Linux / partition is hdg1.

Lilo installed to hdg1, went through the same steps as you describe above - select Mandrake at the NT boot loader and all I get is 'LI' - nothing else.

I can boot Mandrake perfectly OK from the boot floppy created during the install.

I started another thread about it but so far haven't got any responses.

 

[Damaged]

And I'm not going to be much help here, at least not immediately as I've never mucked with installing Linux on additional controller cards. I'd have to reasearch it a bit I guess. But, I'm guessing that's the real issue here.

 

[Rob G.]

The CMD '66 controller is onboard, but that's what I was thinking too.

But - what really puzzles me is why it boots OK from the floppy. If Mandrake just didn't like the CMD '66 ports I'd expect it not to boot at all, but as it is it works fine - from floppy!

 

[Damaged]

And, I just realized that I said something that's incorrect. If you're making that file with LILO on it, it's not going to be past that cylinder, so never mind that statement.

Rob G.: I'm having a brain fart right now as to why that might work but it won't load via ntloader. Rings a bell, but I can't remember what the deal might be with that. That and I'm pretty sure, though I don't use it, that Mandrake 7.2 has built in support for ATA 66 controllers. As to support for the ABIT IDE RAID controller though, I'm not sure.

 

[afropick]

Thanks for your input Damaged. I'm beginning to think you're right, in that, one way or another the controller is the problem.

Rob G. I subscribed to your thread just in case we get answers. What I've been doing to get into linux is going into the controller's bios and setting the hdd with linux on it as the boot disk.

Wait a minute...Gasp...

Could it be possible that only one drive can boot when its on a controller in this way? Because it works perfectly when the highpoint controller on my board has that drive set as boot disk.

Damaged, any ideas?

 

[Rob G.]

I was thinking the same thing, BUT why does mine still boot off the floppy? Unless there is a fundamental difference in how the floppy handles the boot of couse.

Someone on LinuxNewbie recommend me to try and configure Lilo to use the CHANGE parameter to tell the BIOS to 'switch' the two phyiscal drives in order to allow the one to boot. The example he gave didn't work, but if this rings any bells with anyone here perhaps they can provide a working answer.

 

[Rob G.]

Just for info, here's my current lilo.conf file

boot=/dev/hdg1
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
vga=normal
default=linux
keytable=/boot/uk.klt
lba32
prompt
timeout=100
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label=linux
root=/dev/hdg1
append=" hdc=ide-scsi"
vga=788
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label=linux-nonfb
root=/dev/hdg1
append=" hdc=ide-scsi"
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label=failsafe
root=/dev/hdg1
append=" hdc=ide-scsi failsafe"
read-only
other=/dev/hde1
label=windows
table=/dev/hde
map-drive=0x80
to=0x81
map-drive=0x81
to=0x80
other=/dev/fd0
label=floppy
unsafe