If I understand correctly what you are saying, it sounds like
you accidently formated the linux partion (i.e. hda1) not the
entire disk it's self. As I understand it, LILO really
consists of 2 parts. The boot loader which sits at block 0 in
the first 512 bytes of the disk and a system loader that is on
one of the disk partions (consisting of map, boot.b, chain.b,
etc.). Each letter printed is actually a debugging code from
LILO. I believe printing "LI" and then hanging means that
LILO's boot loader successfully loaded but it was unable to
start the second system loader stage. This is consistent with
a format/corruption of the Linux root disk/partition.
The real question now is "Do you want to restore the original
linux installation?" Given the condition the Linux partition
is probably in now, this is definately beyond the scope of a
novice and several emails (and probably a few experts too.)
Simply reinstalling DOS or something else probably won't work
since it is the LILO boot loader that needs to be removed.
Your best bet is to except your Linux loss and run the DOS
command (from the good drive on the bad) "fdisk /mbr". This
rewrites the master boot record (block 0) with a standard DOS
boot loader (load the first partition marked bootable). From
here your installation of DOS or OS/2 on the bad drive should
work. Alternatively you could just reinstall Linux from
scratch on the bad drive, at the end of the installation it
will write a new LILO to the master boot record.
Adrian
