hdinstall -- lilo fails
Forum: HD Install
Topic: hdinstall -- lilo fails
started by: longship
Posted by longship on Nov. 30 2004,00:25
Running DSL on PII-400 (Deschutes) on Asus P2B-F,twin Fujitsu 2.5 HD (/dev/hda, /dev/hdb)
Run 'sudo dsl-hdinstall'
Select 'hda1' (partitioned as bootable, type 82 = Linux,
size=approx 300Mb)
Select install with multi-user logins= y
System goes through the whole process, no apparent error
messages until:
"Do you want to run mkliloboot now?"
Answered 'y'
The following was printed on terminal:
==================================
/dev/root on / type ext2 (rw)
/dev/scd0 on /cdrom type iso9660 (ro)
/dev/cloop on /KNOPPIX type iso9660 (ro)
/ramdisk on /ramdisk type tmpfs (rw,size=199644k)
/proc/bus/usb on /proc/bus/usb type usbdevfs (rw,devmode=0666)
/dev/hda1 on /mnt/hd type ext2 (rw)
Setting up boot loader (LILO) into the master boot record..
Warning: '/proc/partitions' does not exist, disk scan bypassed
Added Linux *
Skipping /vmlinuz.old
}The lilo boot installation process is finished.
You must reboot to continue the final stage of the hard drive install.
==========================================
[Q] Is this normal?
Upon boot, lilo says:
L 99 99 99 99 99 99 99... (etc)
It should be "LILO (etc)"
Apparently I've got something wrong
[Q] Where do I go from here?
[Q] Is there any way to boot the installation from the CD
so I can fix 'lilo.conf' or MBR or whatever?
Thanks.
Posted by longship on Nov. 30 2004,01:27
DSL version is 0.8.2
Posted by SaidinUnleashed on Nov. 30 2004,04:23
Try using fdisk to make a new mbr and try installing again.I'd explain it to ya, but it's just as easy for you to use Google as it is for me, and I can't remember off the top of my head.
Or if you are using an NT based version of windows, you can teach ntldr to boot linux. Info about doing this < here >.
Thats what I do on my box at home, because lilo sucks.
Grub > ntldr > lilo
-J.P.
Posted by longship on Nov. 30 2004,04:31
Solved my own problem...But for those of you having similar issues with hdinstall here's
a quick answer to my question.
As has been pointed out in other messages in this forum:
LILO has problems when the drive geometry doesn't fit
its notion of how the drive should look. In my case,
I had configured the drives in the BIOS using "normal"
mode, which is my usual practice. Unfortunately LILO
doesn't agree which is why it wasn't booting.
1. I set the BIOS to AUTO configure the hard drive.
I have no idea what it does, but I suspect that
this configures the drive in LBA mode.
2. I repartitioned the drive (using Linux-BBC since
DSL has a broken "fdisk" which cannot read some
drives). I made a 300Mb partition (making sure that
it was within 1024 sectors of the beginning of the
drive). I set the BOOT FLAG on this partition.
I also set up a SWAP partition and two other
partitions for possibly another Linux boot.
3. I ran dsl-hdinstall (after booting DSL).
Voila! LILO booted perfectly and I'm now on DSL on the
hard drive.
Cool!
Posted by ico2 on Dec. 01 2004,09:50
welcome to the forums:)
Posted by dsl_n00b on Mar. 09 2005,00:03
I had the same exact problem, and had also answered Y to the mkliloboot question.The answer should be "N," then allow the script to finish.
At the next prompt follow the instruction from the FAQ page:
< http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/faq.html >
| Quote |
| 4. Execute "mkliloboot" by typing "sudo -u root mkliloboot" (without the quotes) Enter the partition that your install is on. This will create an "initrd" with the needed modules and will setup "LILO". |
This small difference worked for me. The red slap-mark on my forehead reminded me to read the documention better next time.
Posted by nonlinuxexpert on Mar. 11 2005,11:05
Nope! None of these intervention strategies worked for me. Can't even get the Grub script to boot up using a Grub FD. Time for some very serious considerations by our coding experts. How Does Klaus Knopper manage to get it right every time?!