At 19:28 1999.02.17 -0500, Richard Andrews <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>I want to have Win95 start-up as normal for her but be able to start linux
>when I need it. The problem seems to be that the HD that my linux system is
>on is a Seagate disk with Ontrack (used for getting large IDE drives on old
>BIOSes).
>
>I can boot the linux system OK or I can boot win95 OK (different drives) but
>I can't get LILO to start win95 (I think this is because of the Ontrack
>system), it just freezes. There is a problem with the floppy drive too and
>it won't let me boot from it.
If both Linux and W95 are on the same disk, here is my guess :
Ontrack is installed on the MBR and loaded at boot time. When it loads,
it installs substitutes for the 13h functions of the BIOS that handle
disk I/O. It replaces them with functions that do some linearisation
with the sector C.H.S. numbers that make the disk seem to have less
cylinders and more heads so that you can access all its sectors.
By installing Lilo on the MBR, you made a big mistake ; you have
overwritten Ontrack. That alone could explain why W95 doesn't boot
anymore. Since Ontrack is not there anymore, the disk looks like it
has a different geometry than when W95 was installed. This is
generally fatal.
The first thing you need to do now is to reinstall Ontrack. If my
guess is correct, the data in your W95 partition is not lost (phew!)
but you won't be able to boot W95 anymore until you put Ontrack back
on the MBR.
Then, you can either follow Lucas' suggestion (always booting W95 and
booting Linux from W95 with loadlin or whatever) or install some kind
of boot manager WITHOUT OVERWRITING ONTRACK THIS TIME and installing
Lilo on the boot sector of the Linux partition (NOT on the MBR) [1].
I don't know which boot managers can install without overwriting
Ontrack. I've heard about Grub (free) and System Commander
(commercial) but I don't know whether or not they can do that.
Hope this helps. But remember that all the above is just a guess from
a distance of 10,000 km. I might be completely wrong ! (though I hope
not) #include <disclaimer.h>
[1] you control where Lilo installs with the line "boot=" in
/etc/lilo.conf. "boot=/dev/hda" will put Lilo on the MBR (and happily
overwrite whatever what's there, including Ontrack). "boot=/dev/hda2"
will put Lilo on the boot sector of the partition /dev/hda2.
Andr� Majorel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
http://www.teaser.fr/~amajorel/
