Hi all,

I am a NEWBIE and am just learning EVERYTHING. Please, be detailed in responses. I am clueless.

I am running Mandrake 9.2 dual booting with XP. I have 4 hard drives. I had everything working (LILO worked and no boot problems). This is my first shot at Linux, screwed up alot, learned more, and thought I would erase and re-install Mandrake 9.2 from scratch.

Install went fine. I put the LILO on hdg after I did a full erase on the disk that I installed Linux on.

LILO worked, kinda. I saw 3 other Windows boot options, and Linux. Chosing Linux, it will boot fine.

None of the other 3 "Windows" will boot. They boot hda1, hdg1, and hdh. My true windows OS is (I believe) on hdg1. (that hard drive is spit in two).

I ran fdisk /mbr to clear the mbr and try to just get Windows up and running. Lilo no longer came up, and during boot I would get just a quick flash of the Win XP logo followed abruptly by the computer restarting. It would just loop like that.

I physically removed the other 3 Hard drives, and Windows boots normally using one hard drive. If I connect one additional hard drive (slave on the same cable), I get the winxp logo followed by restart loop. Same loop if I just connect the other cables to the hard drives (they are connected via PCI slot.

it appears that I have made the other 3 hard drives bootable and this confuses the boot process.

QUESTIONS:

1) How do I connect the other 3 hard drives and get Windows to boot normally.

2) Then how do I go about re-installing LILO and where should I put it?

I do not have a Linux bootable floppy (wouldn't let me make one-said there wasn't enough room). I do have the 3 installation CD's. Is there a repair mode on the CD's like Windows?

Mandrake does have an excellant rescue utility that's saved my butt more than once when either Windows or Linux borked my system.
Use it to reinstall LILO to the MBR, and get Linux working again.

Try booting into linux, and running:
cfdisk
cfdisk /dev/hd*

it will default to /dev/hda, and show you the first hard drive your BIOS probes for boot.
Make sure that on all your drives, only bootable partitions are flagged "boot" - probably already so, but just to minimize confusion.
At the same time, check which ones are bootable and make note of the proper Windows one. (can verify by partition size)

Then, add this to the end of your LILO config (/etc/lilo.conf):

other=/dev/hd*#
label="Windows"

where *# is the right hd partition: g1, if you're right

If you're still having problems, post your /etc/lilo.conf here and we'll go from there.

Cheers,
--Rounan

Thanks for the reply.

As I said, I CANNOT boot into linux so therefore I cannot run cf disk.

As my computer sits right now, when it starts it just goes into a loop of a flash of WinXP startup screen, then it shuts down and reboots. This is a loop.

Can cf disk be run from the install cd's?

Put in the first Mandrake CD. Hit F1 and type "rescue" at the commandline.

Rounan,

Thanks for the reply. I am now back at the computer and going to try this again.

Setup as it sits today is: rescue mode let me boot into linux.
CF Disk showed: hdh1 boot (this is my linux disk)
hdh5
hda1 boot (this is where files are located)
hda5 (another partition for files)
hda6 linux swap (not sure why it is this.)
hdg1 boot (windows)
hdg5

I removed the boot on hda1.

Here is my lilo.conf

lba32
boot=/dev/hda
install=/boot/boot-menu.b
backup=/dev/null

# Specifies the location of the map file
#
map=/boot/map
timeout=100
vga=normal
image=/vmlinuz
append="lang=de apm=power-off hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi hde=scsi hdf=scsi hdg=scsi hdh=scsi vga=791 quiet BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix"
root=/dev/hda5
label=Knoppix
read-write



I had to use a Knoppix install cd to boot as I didn't have my Mandrake handy. I am running Mandrake 9.2.

THANKS for all your help. http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...readid=135260# I am very new to this and just having fun.

Take care
Mark

also: I tried to add

other=/dev/hdg1
label="Windows"

But when I went to :! w /etc/lilo.conf it said that lilo.conf was a read-only file and didn't save the changes/additions. I then tried to chmod a+w /etc/lilo.conf and it wouldn't let me do that either.

any ideas?

thanks again.
Mark

Before you can edit most config files, you need to su to become root. This is by design, as only the root user shoudl be able to modify sensitive system settings. I would highly recommend you NOT change permissions on config files - just su whenever you need to edit.

removing the boot flag on hda is a good thing. I -THINK- that might have been what was causing your loop - when you did fdisk /mbr before, it likely defaulted to hda, and wrote a windows boot sector for a drive with no OS on it.

From there, I think you're good... just add
default="Windows"
to the top of lilo.conf

and
other=/dev/hdg1
label="Windows"

below your linux setup.

Let me know if there are any problems.

--Rounan

Almost forgot:

after you alter the config but before you reboot, run lilo.

This will update your mbr and actually make the changes.

--Rounan

Rounan,

Thanks for the fast reply. Wow, learning things at record pace here. Just went through the vi tutor to figure this stuff out, kinda

I made the changes to lilo.conf, but it still will not save the changes.

I am in su

To save, I am using :!wq and this is what I get

shell returned 127

Hit ENTER or type command to continue
[No write since last change]

Hit ENTER or type command to continue
[No write since last change]
/bin/bash: line 1: wq: command not found

shell returned 127

Hit ENTER or type command to continue
[No write since last change]
/bin/bash: line 1: /etc/lilo.conf: Permission denied

shell returned 126

Hit ENTER or type command to continue
[No write since last change]
/bin/bash: line 1: wq: command not found

shell returned 127

Hit ENTER or type command to continue






I don't think it saved.

Also, to run lilo after the changes, just type "lilo" as root?

The other thing I was looking at, should it say boot=/dev/hda? shouldn't that be hdh1 (linux) or hdg1 (windows)?

Should hda1 have a boot flag? That is just a "files" partition I have set up for music.



thanks again
Mark

Please, please, please, for the love of all that's good and holy, don't use vi.

It's almost invariably the first thing that comes up when people search for a linux text editor, and it's also pretty much the most newbie-unfriendly thing I've ever seen.

pico or nano will do the job much much more easily. if you don't have 'em, and have to use vi, fine - and kudos for reading a tutorial!

Ummm.... yeah.... it sure does look like your root user doesn't have permission to write lilo.conf.... which should be impossible. try chmod u+rw lilo.conf
if THAT doesn't work... ummm... are you SURE you did su?

As for the hda thing, I wondered the same thing myself after looking at your config, and spent a couple minutes reading man lilo.conf to figure it out.
when it's saying boot=/dev/hda, it means that lilo is installed in the mbr of hda. Which is a good thing, since hda is the first device your BIOS is going to probe in any case.
the boot= option has nothing to do with which OS you'll be booting to, only which hd lilo is going to write to - and which hd will boot the comp.

Any partition that does not house an operating system should not be flagged boot. so if hda1 is just storage, no boot flag.
Only thing that I might be overlooking in that, because I don't have any experience in multi-HD booting, is that since the mbr is installed to hda, something somewhere expects there to be a bootable partition on hda. But that "something somewhere" shouldn't be LILO, because it's normally good with this sort of thing, and shouldn't be the BIOS because it doesn't care what happens after it finds a boot record. So I think you're home free.

--Rounan

Ok, I will also change the other boot flag and see how it goes.

As far as the vi editor....it really isn't too bad after going through the tutorial. It is pretty easy for small changes. I finally got it to save. Evidently I was using the wrong syntax and :w! worked in saving the changes.

How do I "run" lilo now? just type LILO doesn't seem to work.....I know I am missing something really easy here......

thanks again
Mark

case.

lilo, not LILO.

That is what I thought in reading other posts.....this is what I get however.

root@ttyp0[sbin]# lilo
Fatal: creat /boot/map~: Read-only file system


As you can see, I am su.

weird??

Very weird.

It's failing to create the system map file in your /boot directory.

... and I don't know why.

try lilo -M
That tells it to install a master boot loader... if you're still only able to boot from rescue CD this might be required...

Other thing: you installed Mandrake, and then rescued with Knoppix? Hrmmm... I think that's gotta be it... the "read-only" leads me to believe that the /boot it's pointing to is on a CD.

Try lilo -M and if that fails you're going to need to seriously fiddle with lilo.conf. Are you using scsi hds? Because the append option leads the kernel to think you are... and it also tells is to run in german. not sure if that's what you want. first thing I'd do is erase the "append" line unless you know there are things in there you want.

I'm fast approaching the edges of my "knowledge" here, and I'm taking stabs in the dark. Don't be afraid to try out anything you can think of. You know your system better than I do, and you've always got that rescue CD.

--Rounan

Rounan,

I can't tell you how much I have learned through this!! Thanks a ton.

Mandrake vs Knoppix : I installed Mandrake from a mirror, then ordered the cd's from CheapBytes. They sent me the wrong cd. Rescue from the mirror (using Mandrake) doesn't seem to work. The right cd is in the mail.

I think that is the basis for my problem not being able to write to files. It seems to be running Linux directly off the cdrom however I can do minor manupliations of my linux files.

As far as my bios looking at Hda first...that is kinda weird on how it labeled the drives. Hda is a master drive that is on a PCI expansion slot which is nothing more than files. Hdb is slave on the expansion slot. My "Windows" drive (labeled hdg) is the master on the ide cable. Linux (hdh) is the slave on the ide cable. During bios start, the expansion slot drives are not listed, just the ide drives.

Where I am thinking of going now::::::
1) Get Windows to boot up with all my drives plugged in. That is currently not happening. Windows just keeps restarting the computer during boot.

2) Format, erase, and re-install Mandrake on the slave drive on the ide cable.

QUESTIONS FOR ANYONE: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...readid=135260#

how do I get windows to boot properly? I have tried fdisk /mbr , fixboot c,,,

any other ideas?

thanks in advance.
Mark