phantom drive disallowing lilo reconfiguration

rose_bud4201 · 08-11-2003, 10:06 PM

Hi.
I think this post might explain some of the case history here. Still in the process of figuring out that missing hard drive problem, but this seems to be another one.

lilo.conf:

Code:

boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
vga=normal
default=linux
keytable=/boot/us.klt
prompt
nowarn
timeout=100
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
disk=/dev/hde bios=0x81
disk=/dev/hdg bios=0x82
image=/boot/vmlinuz
	label=linux
	root=/dev/hda5
	initrd=/boot/initrd.img
	append="quiet devfs=mount hdd=ide-scsi hdb=ide-scsi"
	vga=788
	read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
	label=linux-nonfb
	root=/dev/hda5
	initrd=/boot/initrd.img
	append="devfs=mount hdd=ide-scsi hdb=ide-scsi"
	read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
	label=failsafe
	root=/dev/hda5
	initrd=/boot/initrd.img
	append="failsafe devfs=nomount hdd=ide-scsi hdb=ide-scsi"
	read-only
other=/dev/hda1
	label=NT
	table=/dev/hda
other=/dev/fd0
	label=floppy
	unsafe

My problem is twofold:
1. One problem line is the one up there at the top, involving /dev/hde: when I run /sbin/lilo, it tells me that there is no /dev/hde, which is quite correct. My question is this: If I were to comment out that /dev/hde line, what would happen? And how has my system booted so far if lilo should be screwed up by this non-working line in its config file??
2. I recently wiped windows, which meant deleting the windows boot partition on /dev/hda (fdisk -d), recreating it (fdisk -n) and reformatting it with mke2fs. All of this has worked perfectly, my system is hunky-dory, and the new partition is happily mounted and contains the DocumentRoot of my apache web server.
Will the absense of an NT partition screw with that

other=/dev/hda1
label=NT
table=/dev/hda

section of lilo.conf, also? Merely trying to anticipate problems when I reboot

Thanks so much, all who've taken the time to read this!

michaelk · 08-12-2003, 07:10 AM

Nothing ...

The BIOS assigns a number to each drive. By default
1st drive - 0x80
2nd drive - 0x81
etc...

If you have an unusual setup of multiple disks you can manualy change it by assigning a drive to and id number like in your lilo.conf. Since you don't have an /dev/hde or probably a /dev/hdg either then you were reasigning a nonexistent drive. So go ahead and comment out or delete the two lines.

You also can delete the other line = config since there isn't an NT anymore

geoff_f · 08-12-2003, 07:11 AM

I'm not certain about this, but someone else will probably jump in and correct me if I'm wrong. I think the answer to both is that there would not be (and hasn't been) a problem, probably because they have not been selected to boot from. Ie, none of the entries mention booting from /dev/hde, so you could have been using this particular lilo.conf all the time without actually calling upon the /dev/hde drive (phantom as it is). Similarly, provided you now don't select 'NT' from lilo's boot menu, then you won't cause a problem. It would be better to remove the lines altogether, or comment them out as a first step if you feel safer with that. After doing that, you should get no adverse reaction from lilo; in fact, it should be better, as lilo should then stop complaining about /dev/hde not being there, and it should then let you reconfigure.

rose_bud4201 · 08-12-2003, 08:44 AM

Great, thanks guys! I really appreciate the help