LILO above 1024 on 30gb hd

[burr]

Now that the messages about Lilo above cyl 1024 have subsided, I'm wondering about 2 things. I saw ref to some BIOS recognizing Lilo above 1024. Which ones? Or did I misread the statement. No2. Has "Linux" addressed the problem of loading on LARGE hard drives? It looked like the loading was pretty much automated on small drives and now we (I) have 20 and 30 gb drives to contend with. I had RedHat 5.2 on a 2 gb HD on my laptop at one time but this problem of where to put everthing on my new WD307aa (30gb)has me afraid to try. Any one have any ideas or thoughts?
Burr

Burr Stephens
burr-stephens@worldnet.att.net

 

[mbaranski]

Sorry if this is at a simpler level than you were looking for, I'm not a Linux expert by far, but this may help.

The way I usually do it is to create the /boot partition first using fdisk rather than disk druid, which guarantees that it gets put on the low cylinders. Or, when you install linux, you can tell it to put LILO on the mbr of the first drive, where it will surely work. I haven't had a problem using a (dual boot) linux system with LILO on a >15 GB drive, Linux doesen't really care that the BIOS won't recognize the whole drive.

Good Luck!

 

[burr]

I have Windows 98 on the first 20gb and I didn't want to repartition that drive. From what everone is telling me, it looks like I need a non-destructive repartition program and reserve room for the /boot below 1024.
My original question was directed to LINUX and why it can't be re-written to solve the problem? My BIOS recognizes the whole drive. Why can't Linux?
Thanks for your suggestion.

Burr Stephens

Burr Stephens
burr-stephens@worldnet.att.net

 

[Cirvam]

I'm not an expert but I think that older versions of lilo can't boot from above the 1024 cylinder. Also some bioses can't boot from above that either I think. You might want to check the lilo how to for help

Erik
cirvam@netzero.net

Looking to learn more about Linux, Apache, PHP and others.

 

[mbaranski]

I have also had it work by installing linux (after windows) on another partition or even another drive, and one of the setup options is to install LILO on /dev/hda1, which has worked. I would have a Windows 98 boot disk handy, and if LILO screwes up the boot sector, you can *usually* boot from the 98 disk and run

A:\fdisk /mbr to re-write the mbr to Win 98 only, and hopefully not loose anthing except a few hours. This has worked for me.

 

[burr]

Thanks for all the comments.
Where all the docs pertaining to these specific questions?
To MBARANSKI: Do you also mean that you set the partition for /boot above the 1024 cyl? Were all the partitions above 1024?

Burr


Burr Stephens
burr-stephens@worldnet.att.net

 

[mbaranski]

What I did was load Windows NT 4.0 first, on a clean drive. I fdisk'ed a partition that I wanted to put NT on with MS's Fdisk. Then, after i loaded NT and it would boot, I went and made a linux boot disk.

I proceeded to load Linux on the same disk, but used disk druid that comes with the linux install to partition these partitions. I just didn't touch the NT partition(s) at all. The thing I don't know is where NT puts the partition when you create it (I assume at the lowest possible point, but I don't know) I do know that NT puts it's boot loader on the MBR.

When linux asked me where to install LILO, I had it put it on the MBR, and it worked like a charm. I don't know if I just lucked out and Linux's disk druid happened to put the /boot/ partition in a certian place, or if LILO just has to be there and it's cool. I *think it's the latter, but I'm not positive.

I don't have the RedHat manual, which explains this. I recall it saying that if LILO is < 1024 you're OK, but I wouldn't bet money on it. I hope this makes sense.

 

[urchin]

New to the list, so I haven't read the previous posts, but the newest release of LILO (included with Mandrake 7.1 for example) can handle large boot partitions (above 2GB) if you specify &quot;lba32&quot; in the lilo.conf file.

If you're having trouble installing LILO on the version of Linux you're running, create a LILO bootdisk temporarily, download the latest version of LILO and include lba32 in the conf file. Run /sbin/lilo and it should handle everything perfectly.

I run Linux on it's own 20GB Maxtor IDE drive without a /boot partition and everything is smooth as silk.

Urchin

 

[Kudagai]

Mandrake 7.1 and up is capable of using the Windows partition as a springboard to a boot of Linux. I haven't done it, so I'm not sure of the details, but it writes a bit of stuff into the Win32 partition, and uses this as a way to launch Linux. As I said, I've never done this. One of my systems has Linux on a separate drive, and the other doesn't have a windows partition. But that's what the docs say will happen. Just insert the CD into a computer that's already got Win32 running, and follow the prompts.