How to add FreeDOS to lilo.conf?

[scottmso]

I have Mandrake 8.2, and just installed FreeDOS on another partition. What should I add to the lilo.conf file to add FreeDOS to the Lilo boot menu?

[voidmain]

Assuming you have installed FreeDOS to it's own partition you first need to find out what that partition name is in Linux "# fdisk -l /dev/hda" will list all your partitions on your first IDE drive. Assuming your FreeDOS partition is "/dev/hda2" you would add this to your /etc/lilo.conf:

Code: [Select]

Then rerun the lilo command:

# /sbin/lilo

[scottmso]

I type this in in /etc/lilo.conf (without note in parenthesis, of course):

other=/dev/hdb8 (FAT16 partition where FreeDOS is located)
table=/dev/hdb
label=freedos

and do /sbin/lilo but it fails for unknown reason. I do this:

other=/dev/hdb8
label=freedos

and do /sbin/lilo and it /sbin/lilo didn't fail. Not sure why removing the table= part made the command not fail. But I try to load FreeDOS in LILO and just get this message:

Loading freedos
FreeDOS FAT_ (blinking)

It doesn't do anything else. I press Ctrl-Alt-Delete and the system restarts to the LILO screen. Anyone know what is going on?

[ October 18, 2002: Message edited by: scott ]

[voidmain]

Did you install FreeDOS on that partition so it was bootable? That is, did you "SYS" it?

http://www.freedos.org/faq/cgi-bin/fom-serve/cache/23.html

I would suggest making a Linux boot disk (and test it) before messing with the partition table but I would then set the partition that FreeDOS resides on to "Active" to see if it will boot by itself. You might also need to do an "FDISK /MBR" with the FreeDOS boot floppy. Now since you say it is on /dev/hda8 I assume that is in an extended partition. I'm not sure if FreeDOS will boot in an extended partition, might need to be in a primary partition.

[ October 18, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]

[scottmso]

I believe that it is on the extended partition (I created it within Mandrake anyway.) I did SYS the partition before. If I move the FreeDOS files from my current FAT16 partition over to a new one and delete the older one (I have space not used by anything on my HD), is it likely the install will still work?

[ October 18, 2002: Message edited by: scott ]

[voidmain]

As long as it's a FAT partition and you SYS it, yes it should work.

[scottmso]

Thanks, I did get it to work when I removed it from the extended partiton.