After a good hd install Lilo cannot boot

Forum: HD Install
Topic: After a good hd install Lilo cannot boot
started by: sekelsenmat

Posted by sekelsenmat on Aug. 29 2005,23:58

After a good install, upon startup all I get is "LIL". And I tryed about 10 times to reinstall lilo without any success.

I googled and read that this could be a disk geometry problem, but my bios is already set to automaticaly find the disk geometry.

So I tryed installing debian, and grub works flawlessly, but I want to run DSL, due to the very limited resources of this computer.

So I saw on the wiki: < http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/index.php/Installing_Grub >

So I created the floppy, booted it and it gave me a command line.

The problem is I have no idea what to do on the command line. The tutorial will not say how do I use the floppy or how do I create the menu.list file.

If I write "boot" it will say that the kernel needs to be loaded.

If I write "kernel" it will say that the filename must be a relative one ERROR 1

I'm googling for a long time now and can't seam to find a way to use this grub floppy

thanks,

Felipe

[EDIT TO ADD]More details: It's a Pentium 400Mhz, 96 MB RAM, cd-rom boots, has network access. 6 GB HD.

Posted by SaidinUnleashed on Aug. 30 2005,03:02

...yes it does say how to use the floppy.

Quote

So, now that you have your boot media, you need to boot the dead computer with the grub disk in it, and tell grub how to boot it.

Thankfully, GRUB is very simple to do this with. for example, if your DSL hd-install is on hda1, here is what you need to enter.

title DSL
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/linux24 root=/dev/hda1
makeactive
boot

or, for frugal,

title DSL
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/isolinux/linux24 root=/dev/hda1
initrd /boot/isolinux/minirt24.gz
makeactive
boot

Please read the whole document.

menu.list is a text file.

-J.P.

Posted by sekelsenmat on Aug. 30 2005,22:05

Quote (SaidinUnleashed @ Aug. 29 2005,23:02)

...yes it does say how to use the floppy.

Please read the whole document.

menu.list is a text file.

-J.P.

Ok, so here are the commands, right?

1 - title DSL

Error. Unknown command "Title"

2 - root (hd0,0)

Works

3 - kernel /boot/linux24 root=/dev/hda1

Error. Unknown file "/boot/linux24"

4 - makeactive

Error. kernel not loaded.

5 - boot

Error. Kernel not loaded.

So, do you still think that re-reading will help me?

I cannot create the menu.list file because there are no commands on the boot floppy to do so. The few commands that exist complaint about the kernel not being loaded.

thanks,

Felipe

Posted by SaidinUnleashed on Aug. 31 2005,01:06

Evidently, your DSL install is not on /dev/hda1, which is what grub understands as (hd0,0).

As stated in the doc,

Quote

for example, if your DSL hd-install is on hda1,

all commands are used assuming DSL is on hda1. If your DSL install is on a different partition or disk, you will have to adapt the commands to fit your needs.

Grub disk syntax is briefly explined in the wiki, if you need a more complete manual on Grub, please visit the Grub website, located at < http://gnu.org/software/grub > and see the page for Grub Legacy entitled FAQ and the page entitled Documentation.

-J.P.

Posted by sekelsenmat on Aug. 31 2005,02:44

Acctually my DSL as installed on hda1 (I partitioned the hd manually and set it).

Maybe the grub boot disk has issues with my ext3 partition, but I can't help thinking that this should work, as Debian's grub works.

Thank you very much for the grub documentation thought.

Posted by sekelsenmat on Aug. 31 2005,02:47

Is "title DSL" a command? Why wasn't it recognized? (maybe the floppy is nuts?)

thanks,

Posted by SaidinUnleashed on Aug. 31 2005,03:01

For grub-on-a-floppy, the title command is ignored. It's really just for menu.list.

I leave it there because grub ignores it, and it's easy to cut-and-paste into menu.list when that is created.