Whitney,
Thank you for responding to my email.... I now understand that it looks
loads the BMR which most likely points to DOS. and if I want to have
point to Linux, I have to rewrite the BMR as such and make the Linux
partition active.
It the above is right, do I just use
dd if=/dev/sda of=/boot/linux bs=512 count=1
to rewrite the MBR?
Thanks again
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 1999 1:31 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: another LiLO question for another Newbie
Take a look at your /etc/lilo.conf. That is where lilo looks by default
for a configuration file, unless you tell it otherwise with a
-C <config file>.
I am not sure what it will do with initrd = boot/....
I'd make that initrd = /boot/....
(an absolute path) just to be sure. As you have it now, the BIOS loads
the master boot record (first sector of /dev/sda). If that is the
standard dos issue mbr, it then looks to see which partition is marked
active (one and only one, or it will halt with an error message), and
boots the first sector of that partition (that would be /dev/sda1, I
guess). I don't think you can mark /dev/sda5 active, so if you want to
use lilo when booting from the hd, you would need to install it on the
mbr:
boot = /dev/sda
lilo
Now (with an error-free install - some lilo abort messages are rather
low-key, but they will stop it working all the same) the BIOS will load
lilo's boot record, which will load the rest of lilo (/boot/boot.b),
which will read /boot/map, see you have specified prompt, type boot: and
wait for timeout tenths of a second for you to select an image, and if
you don't, or if you choose linux, it will load /boot/vmlinuz.test and
mount /boot/initrd-2.0.36-0.7.img on a ramdisk as the root device. If
the initrd is set up right, it will load the scsi modules you need to be
able to mount /dev/sda5 as root and carry on.
If you choose dos, lilo will boot /dev/sda1 just the way the standard
msdos mbr would.
The first time lilo installs itself into /dev/sda, it will copy what was
there before it to /boot/boot.0800, but if you don't trust it, you can
make your own:
dd if=/dev/sda of=/boot/dosmbr bs=512 count=1
That any clearer? Probably not. I think the lilo README is an
excellent piece of doco, although I don't think I understood most of it
the first and only time I waded all the way through.
Lawson
>< Microsoft free environment
This mail client runs on Wine. Your mileage may vary.
On Thu, 30 Sep 1999, Chris Job wrote:
> Well folks
> I've read very thing I could find including the README (plan the read
it
> again this week-end) on LILO. But I am still not clear as to how it
> works.
>
> Below is a copy of my LILO.CFG file:
> boot = /dev/sda5
> timeout = 50
> prompt
> default = linux
> vga=normal
> read-only
> map = /boot/map
> install = boot/boot.b
> image = /boot/vmlinuz.test
> label= linux
> initrd = boot/initrd-2.0.36-0.7.img
> root = /dev/sda5
> other = /dev/sda1
> label = dos
> table = /dev/sda
>
> At the moment my box, boots up to DOS if I don't use my boot-up disk.
> I would like to flexibility to change this so that it boots up from
the
> hard drive (when I'm more confident and know/understand what I'm
doing).
>
> With the README file, I get lost in the details and can't seem to get
> the "big picture" as to what it does and how it does it.
>
> If some-one can take the time to explain in less technical terms, than
> the README, I (and I'm sure many other newbies) will be very grateful.
>
> Thanx
> Chris Job
> "when excellence is available, good is not enough"
>
>
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