fdisk & lilo errors

[asai]

hi,

During installation of RH Linux v 7.0, when i fdisk i get this following messages:

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 4867.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024, and could in certain setups cause problems with:

1) Software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) Booting and partioniong software from other OSs(e.g.,DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

i ignored it but i m only able to boot from floppy and i also unable to run lilo command after i make changes to /etc/lilo.conf

 

[ifincham]

Hi,

If the partition containing your /boot directory is at a position > 1024 cyls then you should edit /etc/lilo.conf and put the keyword 'lba32' in the global section (usually at the top of the file - i.e. not in the 'image' blocks). If you have the keyword 'linear' there remove it. Then update the binary boot record with :

/sbin/lilo -v (must be as root)

Regards

 

[rknalla]

Hi U need not even edit the conf files all U have to do is type in "lilo -L -b/dev/hda" at the shell while logged in as root

 

[asai]

hi,

i've edited /etc/lilo.conf as sugested including running
/sbin/lilo -v
but when i reboot my pc i get 'LIL' message and nothing happens after that
i forget to mention that i have Windows 95 installed in /dev/hda1 and i installed linux in /dev/hda3 and lilo in MBR

for the time being i unistall lilo by
/sbin/lilo -u
so that i can boot my windows again and i'm booting linux by floppy

but i what i'm looking for is the graphical dual boot option
that is available in Redhat Linux

 

[ifincham]

Hi,





The 1024 cylinder boot sector limit can only be overcome if you have a motherboard bios that supports the extended 13h interrupt. The error 'lil' means :





LIL


The second stage boot loader has been started, but it can't load the descriptor table from the map file. This is typically caused by a media failure or by a geometry mismatch.



So either you don't have a new enough bios (i.e. less than roughly four years old) or perhaps you have CHS addressing instead of LBA set in the bios. If so, don't change it as you will lose data because they are different methods of physically accessing a drive and you can't just change between them once you've started.





A newer linux probably won't make any difference. You'd probaby be better off installing another drive (they are so cheap nowadays) and putting linux on that or freeing up some space to make a small boot partition under the 1024 cylinder boundary.





Hope this helps