dual boot for me, please

ME dugan at passwall.com
Mon Oct 15 19:13:31 PDT 2001


On Mon, 15 Oct 2001, Brian Lintz wrote:
[chop]
>      Today I find that as I start my computer, I cannot get past
> the first ten seconds or so of loading: Just as it finishes the
> line "Verifying DMI pool data", it now shows on a new line "LI".
> The cursor just blinks after the "I" and the computer hums idly.
> I recall that during the loading of Caldera Linux I had prepared
> the LILO page -- the linux installation program had found
> that Windows also existed, and I thought that things were
> proceeding well.

(from the docs on LILO:)
...
   LI   The first stage boot loader was able to load the second stage boot 
    loader, but has failed to execute it. This can either be caused by a 
    geometry mismatch or by moving /boot/boot.b without running the map 
    installer. 
...

I'll assume this is a geometry issue since a new install should put the
/boot/boot.b where lilo can find it and use it.

Things to disable in your /etc/lilo.conf :
turn off "compact"
turn off "fix-table" (may have issues with NTFS partitions created in W2k
not ending at cyl boundary, but it worth disabling for testing process.)

Try playing wih linear vs nolinear vs lba32 options too

Is the location of your linux boot kernels within the first 1024 cyls of
the disk? (Was a problem, but not so much anymore.)

Dont forget, with every change to your lilo.conf that would be tested, you
need to run lilo to merge those changes with the disk/mbr. After you run
lilo, then reboot from the local fixed disk to see if it works. Note the
options that cause troubles in your /etc/lilo.conf .

>      How can I get to anything on my computer?

Boot from your emergency bot disk (often a distros Boot CD or boot
floppy.) Never done this with your distros, but it usually involves
booting a kernel from their media and switching roots, or explicitly
telling the system to use your fixed disk OS.

In this case, once you get into your os with your mounter root from the
fixed disk, you would check /etc/lilo.conf and after you fix it, run lilo
and test booting from the local fixed disk.

>      What do I need to do to dual boot Linux with Windows here?

Add entries in /etc/lilo.conf that appropriately map the partition number
and name to an "other" entry and then re-running lilo.

Examples I used for a sample install of Windows 2000, Windows ME, and
Debian Linux: (After the prep stuff for lilo, and the linux stuff, at the
bottom, I added:)

other=/dev/hda2
        label=w2k


other=/dev/hda5
        label=wme

To tell lilo about Windows 2000 on my primary master ATA/IDE drive's 2nd
partition (/dev/hda2 /dev (device) /hd (ata/ide hard disk device while
"sd" would be SCSI Disk, and others would be other names) a (a=primary
master, b= primary slave, c=secondary ata/ide master, d=secondary slave
ata/ide)) 2 (2nd partition)

/dev/hda2 = ATA/IDE, primary master, 2nd partition

/dev/hda5 is part of an extended partition (add the rest of partition 4
made into one big extended partition with sub partitions where the first
partition of this extended partition 4 is partition "5")

Partition 1 |Partition 2 |Partition 3|Partition 4
------------|============|XXXXXXXXXXX|oooooooooooooooooooooooooo|
                                     |##P5##|%%%%P6%%%%|**P7****|

(ASCII Drawing to show how partitions 1-3 are "normal" primary partitions 
while partition 4 uses a primary partition "slot" and has sub-partitions
5, 6 and 7 contained within it. If you formatted partition 4, you would
loose the data on partitions 5, 6 and 7.))   

>      I would also like to go back to Storm Linux because I could
> only install the minimal configuration of Caldera Linux (all
> other configurations were grayed out) and this minimal install
> has zero games.

If you installed Storm before and the install media, you should be able to
go back. There is going to be an installfest on Saturday> I do not recall
if storm was new or old. 

Mainpage info: http://www.nblug.org/ 
Signup:        http://www.nblug.org/installfest/

Perhas someone that has played with Storm can help with that at the
installfest.

-ME




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