dual booting :(

[Master of Reality]

here's the situation: I formatted my windows (main) partion, installed linux-mandrake, then installed windows on my main partition again.
when i installed windows it wrote over the boot sector where LILO was, now i cant get into linux. I tried using my linux boot disk, but it didnt work. I can use my linux CD and get into rescue mode,but how do i re-"install" LILO as my boot loader instead of windows automatically booting itself?

[voidmain]

type /sbin/lilo after booting your hard disk from a boot floppy. If you didn't make a boot floppy you can boot to your hard disk from a Linux install floppy or CD. You'll need to know which partition you installed the Linux root partition on and when you get to the LILO prompt from booting CD or floppy type:

LILO: linux root=/dev/hda2

That assumes you installed Linux on your second partition. After fully booted type "/sbin/lilo" as I stated above. If you are not sure which partition you installed Linux on just try again until you find the right one by changing "/dev/hda2" to "/dev/hda3", 4, 5 etc...

[ March 24, 2002: Message edited by: VoidMain ]

[Master of Reality]

my boot floppy wont work properly, it loads a bit then says "boot failed".
I got into rescue mode, but "/sbin/lilo" wont work in rescue mode, and i cant get to /etc/lilo.conf either. I can get power quest boot magic for windows and use it to load linux, and then decide if i want to keep boot magic or switch to LILO

[ March 24, 2002: Message edited by: Druaga ]

[jtpenrod]

For multi-boot systems, my preference is GRUB instead of LILO. On my system, I have Win 95, Mandrake, Red Hat and QNX. GRUB boots them all with no trouble at all. Since I've got 13GB left free, I'm planning on the new SuSE when it comes out next month, and I'm not anticipating any problems adding that one too.
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[foobar]

Maybe your boot floppy is corrupted?
Try raw-writing an image to a floppy. I thought that mandrake had a special win-rawrite tool for that. On the CD should be a HOWTO about raw writing.

And, void, wasn't it:

LILO: mount root=/dev/hdx ro

To let it fsck the root partition?

[Master of Reality]

ok thanks, the CD does have a rawwrite program for win, i will try it out later.

[voidmain]

I'm sorry, my previous instructions will not work with an install CD... Only from a normal boot floppy or bootable CD that has LILO and a normal kernel/initrd. For install CD instructions try this:

1) Boot your Mandrake CD and press "F1" at the splash screen, then type "rescue"
2) Type "mount" and make sure your real root partition is mounted on "/mnt", if it is not, mount it on "/mnt" (you may need to unmount whatever *is* mounted on /mnt).
3) Type "chroot /mnt"
4) If you have a "/boot" partition type "mount /boot"
5) Now run "/sbin/lilo"
6) Reboot

That should be all there is to it, although I personally use a different method using the Install CD, but it would require many more steps and probably confuse the hell out of everyone.

And the easiest way to do it is create a boot disk from another machine that has Linux installed and then use my first example.  I assume this is your only Linux machine so this will not help you (I have many so it's easy for me).

[ March 25, 2002: Message edited by: VoidMain ]

[Master of Reality]

now, if i do this, will LILO ovewrwrite my EZ-BIOS configuration that i need to use with my 40 GB hard drive?

[Master of Reality]

i *tried* something. my /dev/ram3 was mounted. i tried to mount my main partition and it said it couldnt find in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab/.
so, what am i supposed to do?

[voidmain]

Oh no, EZ-BIOS.. Is your computer that old that the BIOS will not handle that large of a drive?  You don't have any USER drive types in your BIOS setup? Usually you can get away without having to install EZ-BIOS by setting up an appropriate USER drive type with 1024 cylinders or less and calculating how many heads and sectors per track are needed to make 40GB (there are articles on the net for this, search google).  But if you *must* use EZ-BIOS (and you would have to reinstall Windows to remove it) then I would have to do some digging in my memory banks back to the last time I used it (i.e. search google). I'll get back with you on that part.  As far as mounting your partition from rescue mode you will have to give "mount" more than just the hard drive partition you want to mount, you need to also give it the mount point.

# mount /dev/hda2 /mnt

should be enough. This assumes you have a "/mnt" directory, and it also assumes nothing is currently mounted on "/mnt" and it also assumes that your root filesystem is on the second partition of your first hard drive. If you still can not get it, I will install Mandrake in a VMware partition and write up some step by step instructions for you.  Hopefully you'll get it so I don't have to do this (I don't have Mandrake installed on any of my machines at the moment so I can't give you sure fire instructions).

Also, you don't have to mount your root filesystem on "/mnt" if something critical is already mounted there in rescue mode. Just create another directory and mount your partition on that directory, then do the "chroot" command to that directory. Remember, this is *just* for the purpose of reinstalling LILO.  

An alternate to the "chroot" method is to pass parameters to the "lilo" command after mounting your root filesystem so that LILO will do the "chroot" before running (-r <directory>) I believe is the param. That's the way I usually do it.  Again, if you do not figure it out I'll try and find time later this evening to install Mandrake and create the procedures for you.

[ March 26, 2002: Message edited by: VoidMain ]

[Master of Reality]

i didnt get it to work, but theres no need for you to do that for me voidmain. i shall get bootmagic this weekend and use it to boot into linux.
thanks anyway

[ March 26, 2002: Message edited by: Druaga ]

[voidmain]

Originally posted by Druaga:
[QB]i didnt get it to work, but theres no need for you to do that for me voidmain. i shall get bootmagic this weekend and use it to boot into linux.
thanks anyway

Well, it's entirely possible that boot magic will not be able to boot it either as you installed LILO to /dev/hda (hard drive master boot record).  In order for boot magic to boot your Linux patition you would have had to install LILO to /dev/hda2 (or wherever your "/boot" partition resides "/" partition if you do not use a "/boot" partition).

Your best bet may just be to reinstall Linux but when you get to the LILO installation part, do not install to the default of "/dev/hda", install to "/dev/hda2" (or whatever partition your /boot is on as mentioned above. It should give you that option (Mandrake users want to comment?). Then boot magic should be able to boot it.  I'm sure I could get it to work but I don't want to bring one of my machines down to that state to mess with it (especially don't want to install EZ-BIOS, that's nasty stuff). Of course since you *are* using EZ-BIOS, all bets are off. Sorry I don't have the answer you need, maybe someone else here has recently set up a dual boot machine with EZ-BIOS that can help.

WAIT!! I just remembered what I used to do when I ran EZ-BIOS on a dual boot machine.  I didn't use LILO at all.  I used "LOADLIN.EXE".  I actually booted Linux from the Windows boot menu.  Search the net for LOADLIN.EXE. This file should reside on your C: Windows partition along with a copy of your kernel. I created a batch file that I could add to the DOS/Windows bootup screen that would give me the option of booting Linux instead. This allows EZ-BIOS to load before the kernel.  It's pretty easy to use and it used to work very nicely.  Now the last time I used it was pre-module kernel days and there was no "initrd" (initial RAM disk that usually contains kernel modules for devices).  I would at least look into it (or a more recent equivelant).

[voidmain]

And read over this DOC:

http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Large-Disk-HOWTO.html

It may help you understand the situation and a roadmap to get you where you want to be.

[Master of Reality]

i am getting new computer parts (m-board, processor, box) so i may wait till then, format every thing on both my computers (1 is a crappy server already)

afteri get my new computer parts i will have tree computers. i am gonna have a server for my cable internet, running red hat. Another computer which is undecide about what will be on it. And my main computer which will be mandrake and perhaps win98.

so i am gonna totally restart from scratch after i get my new shit.

[voidmain]

And when you do, wipe that EZ-BIOS off your drive (which can be a little tricky).