[ILUG] NEED HELP -LINUX PROBLEM -requires a simple answer

[Dave Neary]

"Andrew S." wrote:
> 
> ok..
> I installed Mandrake 8 on its own partition and set it to dual boot along
> side WIN98. I used Boot Magic (by Powerquest) to dual boot it. Powerquest
> says i Must put LILO in my root home directory for it to boot thru Boot
> Magic. I think i should do this with the "boot=" in lilo.conf. The problem
> is that I can't boot into Linux because Boot Magic just stops at Preparing
> to load OS (or something of that sort) I guess because it can't find LILO
> in / directory? I did not make a boot disk because the install skipped it
> for some reason. All I have is the LM 8 cd and the floppy with the cdrom
> image (cdrom.img) on it. How do I boot into Linux and change the Lilo
> location (if that is the problem)?

Hi Andrew, 

I'm not familiar with boot magic, but I think I see your problem... 

There's a difference between the root partition (the actual partition
that will be mounted at /) and the root directory (/). Lilo has to go
either at the start of the root partition, or in the boot sector of the
hard disk. So (assuming that your root partition is /dev/hda2), your
lilo.conf might look like

boot=/dev/hda2
prompt
timeout=50
default=linux

image=/boot/vmlinuz
	label=linux
	read-only
	root=/dev/hda2

As to your problem of booting into linux... I would suggest borrowing a
rescue disk off someone would be the most painless way. In the absence
of that, you could try making a boot disk with grub (available from
ftp.gnu.org, and buildable (IIRC) under Windows) to boot the Linux
kernel directly. Or maybe someone else has a better solution...

Cheers,
Dave.

-- 
David Neary,               E-Mail dave.neary at palamon.ie
Palamon Technologies Ltd.  Phone +353-1-634-5059