lilo help

[sminotti]

Sucess, finally, with qtparted and knx-install. Looking to have lilo show my WinMe partition as an option at bootup but it's not there.

# /etc/fstab: filesystem table.
#
# filesystem  mountpoint  type  options  dump  pass
/dev/hdd3  /  ext3  defaults,errors=remount-ro  0  1
/dev/hdd2  none  swap  sw  0  0
proc  /proc  proc  defaults  0  0
/dev/fd0  /floppy  vfat  defaults,user,noauto,showexec,umask=022  0  0
/dev/cdrom  /cdrom  iso9660  defaults,ro,user,noexec,noauto  0  0
# partitions found by Knoppix
/dev/hdd1 /mnt/hdd1 vfat noauto,users,exec,umask=000,uid=knoppix,gid=knoppix 0 0
/dev/hdd3 /mnt/hdd3 ext2 noauto,users,exec 0 0

boot=/dev/hdd
vga=791
prompt
timeout=50
append = "hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi hde=scsi hdf=scsi hdg=scsi hdh=scsi apm=power-off nomce"

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-xfs
	label=knoppix
	root=/dev/hdd3
	read-only
	initrd=/boot/initrd.gz

 #A Windows installation, example for partition 1 on first IDE harddisk
 other=/dev/hdd1
	label=dos
	optional
	table=/dev/hdd1

I figure I need to add some code to lilo.conf. Suggestions...

[rickenbacherus]

If windows really is on /dev/hdd then allyou should need to do is run lilo (as root of course) like so:

/sbin/lilo

If windows isn't on hdd then enter the correct drive into your lilo.conf. You would have had to trick windows into being installed on anything but /dev/hda.

[fingers99]

An alternative to Lilo (if Windows isn't on hda) is to use Grub. It's relatively easy for Grub to trick Windows into thinking it's on hda when it's somewhere else. There are some good examples in the HOWTOs.

[sminotti]

Follow up:

Tried grub and on reboot was met with the dreadded 99 99 etc.

Managed to reinstall lilo from cd but still no Windows option at start.

Decided I wanted to start over, deleted the linux ext3 partition but neither qtparted nor cfdisk will zap the swap file. Finally fdisk /mbr and back to square one.
Now qtparted does not display ext3 as an option when creating a partition, not sure why or if it matters.

[fingers99]

Tried grub and on reboot was met with the dreadded 99 99 etc.

Where did you install it? From your first post, your geometry looks very strange: why on earth does it start (and finish!) with hdd? Also, the 99 99 is a Lilo error (man Lilo for details).

There's something very strange about your box........

[sminotti]

Thanks, Fingers (again)

Yes, the hdd part has me wondering as well. Where is hda,b? Methinks it is a bios thing. The box is a Compaq and I recently flashed the bios from the Compaq website.

I did reinstall Knoppix, this time electing not to lilo, and using the bootfloppy when I want to bring the box up linux. I just followed the knx-install script, with the swap now hdd3 and linux partition hdd2, leaving (via cfdisk) only the FAT32 partition bootable. Seems to work fine.

Since the long term goal is to wean from Win to a Linux environment, the present setup should allow me to get (I guess I should say apt-get) the software installed (device drivers especially) that will finish the migration.

I just hope that when the time comes to give that FAT32 partition to linux, all goes well. But the hdd thing has me scared-does Gates lurk within???