LILO problems

I installed RH9 wanting to play around with linux again. When it asked me to install a boot loader I told it no, because I was just gonna set what HD to boot to in the BIOS. But when I do that, it just shows "L 99 99 99 99 99" and so on. So then I tried running the setup again to install LILO but then it gets to a point and says no kernel packages were installed, and that the bootloader wasn't gonna change. I know linux is there, but how do I get lilo setup without having to do a complete reinstall? hdc is where windows is installed, hdb is where linux is installed, and hda is my windows storage drive. HELP!!!

Nobody has an answer? Kendan? Arkaine? Beuller?

Screw linux then, you non-helping linux peoples.

Dont know if you've given up yet...but heres something that may help

http://www.justlinux.com/nhf/Booting_Your_OS/Overcoming_LILO_Dual_Boot_Problems.html

Did you make a rescue floppy? Long ago, I ran into a similar problem and learned that having a rescue floppy was always a good thing to have as a back up.

Anyway, I don't know about RH, but in Slackware you can use the install CD to boot a filesystem installed on the harddrive, so the CD actually acts like the rescue floppy. I would assume RH has a feature like this, but don't know for sure. The CD would then boot the system, ie. run the init scripts, etc. just like it would had you had you installed Lilo problem, and you then can login as root and run LILO again to try and reinstall the bootloader.

You will definatly have to install the bootloader though, or Linux won't boot. Where you install the bootloader is your choice thought, ie. MBR, root partition, etc.

The rescue floppy wont work. I don't have a floppy drive. But right now I'm reading the article that Evnas linked to.

you should be able to boot from cd and mkdir directories under /mnt then mount you partions then chroot over to them and install lilo in /mbr or /boot but reinstalling might be alot easier for you. If you have no idea what I just said then the second method would be best

I had the same problems when I installed the boot loader at the begining of the Linux partition.

Try this...took a few times to get the bootloader installed, but it worked...you will have to uninstall LILLO first...

Using a DOS or Windows 9x/ME Boot Floppy

In case you have DOS or Windows 9x/ME on your system, you can use fdisk for this purpose. Create a rescue disk in DOS or Windows 9x/ME, use it to boot the computer, and execute fdisk as follows:
fdisk /mbr

The MBR will be rewritten and GRUB will be uninstalled.


Using Windows XP

In Windows XP, you can uninstall GRUB as follows:

Boot from the Windows XP CD and press the "R" key during the setup in order to start the Recovery Console. Select your Windows XP installation from the list and enter the administrator password. At the input prompt, enter the command "FIXMBR" and confirm the query with "y". The MBR will be rewritten and GRUB will be uninstalled. Press "exit" to reboot the computer.


Using Windows 2000

In Windows 2000, you can uninstall GRUB as follows:

Boot from the Windows 2000 CD and press the "R" key during the setup and the "K" key in the following menu in order to start the Recovery Console. Select your Windows 2000 installation from the list and enter the administrator password. At the input prompt, enter the command "FIXMBR" and confirm the query with "y". The MBR will be rewritten and GRUB will be uninstalled. Press "exit" to reboot the computer.

NOTE: Even though it says GRUB it will work on both GRUB and LILLO.

Also use Partition Magic to check the Linux partiton in windows.

Well, I think that I'll just reinstall. I'll get around to it sometime.

A little trick I do is install grub in both mbr and my boot partition so if the mbr ever gets corrupted I can just fdisk the mbr and it boots right up off /boot