How to edit lilo.conf?

Forum: HD Install
Topic: How to edit lilo.conf?
started by: lesliek

Posted by lesliek on Mar. 26 2006,06:38

I did a frugal installation of DSL v 2.2b on a Compaq Armada 1700, which formerly had Windows 98 installed.

The hard drive on which I installed it has four partitions.

I created hda1 and hda2 before the installation. They are regular Linux partitions, with hda1 being the boot partition.

hda4 is a swap partition which I also created before the installation.

hda3 is a partition (with ID 12) that I didn't delete when creating the other three. According to a document which I found on the Web about partition types:

"ID 12 (decimal 18) is used by Compaq for their configuration utility partition. It is a FAT-compatible partition (about 6 MB) that boots into their utilities, and can be added to a LILO menu as if it were MS-DOS."

I would like to add hda3 to the LILO menu, as suggested in the quotation, so that, if necessary in the future, hda3 could be selected at boot-up instead of DSL and then used to alter the computer's BIOS settings.

Is such an addition something which would be possible when DSL is being used?

Posted by Trog Dog on Mar. 26 2006,09:14

Sorry, I don't know if it's possible to do what you want - still a newb myself, but you used to be able to get a set of boot floppies from Compaq's website so that you could boot into the bios.

Posted by lesliek on Mar. 26 2006,17:27

Thanks for taking the trouble to reply, Trog Dog.

What we've got here may be catch 22.

The boot-up options as presently set in the BIOS are: cd drive first; hard disk drive second; and floppy disk drive last.

Unless I can get into the BIOS settings to change that, I can't use a floppy to boot up from.

However, your reply made me wonder whether I could copy the contents of the Compaq floppy onto a cd and boot from that. I'll give that a go.

In the meantime, if anyone else has a view on whether I could change my lilo.conf as I originally hoped, I'd be grateful to hear it.

Thanks again,

Leslie

Posted by fpd on Mar. 27 2006,15:43

Compaq (HP) pre-install the Windows 98 OS and do not ship computers with an OS on CD. They make a partition on the HDD and load all the Win98 installation software on that partition. The "Recovery CD" that Compaq ship with the computer looks for the installation software. If you ever have a HDD crash, and buy a new HDD, hoping to get your computer up and running in a few hours... NOT. It takes weeks to get HP/Compaq tech. support to go through their list-of-things-to-do before they start hinting at giving you a real Win98 OS CD.

The Win98 partition is wasted space.

Posted by lesliek on Mar. 27 2006,17:17

Thanks for taking the trouble to reply, fpd.

One good thing, the space I seem to have wasted was small, since the partition I left undisturbed was only a few MB in size.

Thanks again,

Leslie

Posted by larkl on Mar. 30 2006,23:30

I have downloaded the Compaq diagnostic software from their website, but it's been a few years back. Seems like it oculd be run from floppy or from the first partition on the HD, which was pretty darn small. Check this out
< Compaq >.

BTW - I don't think you're going to be able to edit lilo.conf with a frugal install. Most switch to grub as it much easier to edit.

Posted by lesliek on Mar. 31 2006,03:10

Thanks very much for taking the trouble to reply, larkl.

The Compaq link you gave is, as you say, to the diagnostic software. I was concerned primarily with the setup software, because that's what's needed to change the bios settings. I got so far as to create a bootable floppy disk with the setup software on it. However, I haven't been able to get any further yet. I can't use the floppy disk I've created, because the bios is presently set to boot first from the cd drive, secondly, from the hard disk and finally from the floppy disk. I believe that it's possible to create a bootable cd, which could be substituted for the bootable floppy. I've been reading about that process, but don't yet understand enough about it to try to create a bootable cd.

As to my query about editing lilo.conf, I agree with you.

I did think about switching from lilo to grub. In fact, I went so far as to try to run the frugal-install-grub script. However, I chickened out in mid-stream, because the grub script wasn't asking me the same questions as the script that's used with lilo. I can remember that it didn't ask me about boot options (or, at least, not when I expected it to). Since I'm not confident about these things at the best of times, I decided not to persist with the grub script.

If I can get the bootable cd going, then grub v lilo won't matter and all that I'll have done wrong is to leave in existence an unusable 4MB partition. As the machine's hard drive is a massive 4GB, that won't be too terrible.

Thanks again,

Leslie