can't boot from hard drive but only from floppy

**hnash53** · 11-22-2003, 05:15 AM

Linux noob here: I've installed Knoppix successfully, BUT...it won't boot from the hard drive, just from the boot floppy. When I leave the boot floppy out, I get about 10 rows of "99"s across the screen, then nothing. But when I put in the boot floppy, it loads files from the floppy then boots from the hard drive and everything's great. How do I get the boot files on to the hard drive so I don't have to use the boot floppy? Thanks for your replies.

**L2Cache** · 11-22-2003, 06:37 AM

I assume you did a hard drive install of knoppix and lilo bootloader is not working properly. To fix it, edit /etc/lilo.conf, type /sbin/lilo in a terminal, and reboot.

**hnash53** · 11-23-2003, 06:10 AM

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I did do a hard drive install with knoppix, but just made a boot floppy. I thought that doing a hard drive install as described on this site would enable the hard drive to boot. Being new to this, I need some detailed instructions on how to get the hard drive to boot by itself. I don't need lilo since this is a dedicated linux machine with no windows on it.

**L2Cache** · 11-23-2003, 06:23 AM

You have to put a bootloader on the master boot record of the HD for it to boot. I recommend lilo. Edit /etc/lilo.conf as root, then open a terminal and type: /sbin/lilo If you get errors, try again. Here's a sample lilo.conf for redhat 9:

prompt
timeout=50
default=RedHat9
boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
message=/boot/message
lba32

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-8
label=RedHat9
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.20-8.img
read-only
append="hdc=ide-scsi root=LABEL=/"