Problem with lilo please help!

[jhp612]

I chose the Mandrake 8.1 distribution and am having problems with
the bootloader.
I currently have the current setup

HDDa - entire 40 GB hard drive dedicated to windows XP
HDDb- cdrom
HDDc - cdrom
HDDd - a 8 gig hard drive i want to use for linux

motherboard with kt266a chipset
Athlon T-bird 1.4 GHZ
512mb ram

The problem I have is the following: when I boot off the bootable linux cd
rom i get into the install program fine. I can choose all my settings and
partition my HDDd wiht the following - 3gigs for the linux native partition
(/) , 256 mb for the swap partition , and the rest of the space for /home .
It installs fine but then i get to the bootloader setup and I have some
problems. I can boot my computer off HDDd so I want to install the bootloader
there so i can always take out that hard drive in the future and not mess up
the MBR of HDDa . When I set my settings to boot with LILO , I get an error
saying that the cylinder size is too big. I can sucessfully install grub but
then the next time I boot up , when its suuposed to run the boot loader I jus
get a screen that says GRUB on top, and the GRUB fails to load. I would likt
to use the LILO bootloader but I dont know whats goin wrong. If you could
help I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks

 

[n0cmonkey]

Install it in the MBR of the first disk or use the Windows bootloader to load it.

 

[jhp612]

are you sure that if i install it in the MBR of HDDa it wont screw up my windows XP ? If so i'll do it, otherwise any other suggestions please!!!!

 

[n0cmonkey]

<< are you sure that if i install it in the MBR of HDDa it wont screw up my windows XP ? If so i'll do it, otherwise any other suggestions please!!!! >>



IF you install it to the MBR of hdda it will take over and you will have to use LILO to boot XP. If you follow the FAQ you can use the XP bootloader to boot into linux.

 

[jhp612]

"When asked where to install LILO, DO NOT install LILO in the MBR (Master Boot Record), since this will overwrite Windows OS Loader and you may have to reinstall Windows 2000. Instead, install LILO in other partition (superblock of the root partition of Linux drive)." - from faq

wat is the superblock? I'm not sure what it quite means all the partitions i am creating for linux are the /home / swap and / (native linux) partitions. this is thae last thing i need thanks!!!

 

[NorthenLove]

Why not just make a floppy boot disk instead ?

 

[jhp612]

i like the convienence of a bootloader

 

[jhp612]

so does anyone know what the superblock is? anyone please!

 

[n0cmonkey]

There should be 2 or three options for lilo when you install. One will be the MBR, the other the superblock (first part of the hard drive after the MBR). Choose the second one. Atleast, thats what this drunken idiot thinks

 

[Abzstrak]

just install it in the MBR, if you decide later you dont want it there then you do NOT have to reinstall windows, you can just boot of the win cd and tell it to repair the boot sector

 

[jhp612]

I tried installing it to both MBR 's and the superblock , each time i get the same error "geo_compo too big 3771>1024" any other ideas PLEASE!!!

 

[Abzstrak]

thats cuz your /boot is past the 1024 cylinder limit. I know there is some work around for this, but what I do is put the /boot under 1024 and install lilo in the mbr, then put the other partitions wherever you want.

/boot only needs to be around 25 MB or so.

 

[n0cmonkey]

<< thats cuz your /boot is past the 1024 cylinder limit. I know there is some work around for this, but what I do is put the /boot under 1024 and install lilo in the mbr, then put the other partitions wherever you want.

/boot only needs to be around 25 MB or so. >>



Mandrake 8.0 didnt have that problem, so Im not sure that is why he is getting that error. I have no clue why its coming up though.

 

[fivepesos]

i always installed lilo in my superblock then used the NTloader to dualboot. its rather simple with a program called bootpart. here is there site.

u have to make a small binary file of the first 1024 bytes of the linux partition, then you add an entry in your boot.ini and reboot. all of thse steps except reboot are done by bootpart. its realy easy.

tweak3d.net had a guide but their site is down. good luck

 

[fivepesos]

<< so does anyone know what the superblock is? anyone please! >>


its a section of hard drive space reserved in each partition for partition info (bsd slice info?) or a bootloader (lilo, grub, win9x loader). it performs nearly the same function as the master boot record but for each individual partition.

installing lilo/grub into the MBR of you win xp/2k/nt disk will overwrite the NT boot loader rendering windows unbootable. i would suspect a repair from the windows cd would fix the missing boot loader, but i never tried.

dualbooting is a nice step into windows but i think it falls way short in many areas. one, you dont have immediate access to linux, you cant access files on linux partitions under windows (unless u do some hybrid fat32 based distribution), and you spend more time rebooting then using your system. my solution was to install linux on another system (it can be a very modest system for linux), and use a manual monitor switch and two sets of keyboards. if u find yourself using both systems a lot, invest in a KVM switch.

decent equipment can be found at a local used computer shop. usually you can find modest pentiums with small hard drives and a cdrom for ~120$, u might find some cheap sparcs at computer swap meets. good luck.

 

[Abzstrak]

<< Mandrake 8.0 didnt have that problem, so Im not sure that is why he is getting that error. I have no clue why its coming up though. >>



Yea, I haven't seen it in a while, thought it had been fixed but never worried about it too much (never dual boot anymore). I have no freakin clue Y your getting that error then... that bootpart program looks like the way to go though... I'll have to check it out some time

good luck