Reinstalling LILO

[TheBigBasicQ]

I installed ATI Radeon 7000 on my old computer. I had a dual boot with WinME and Linux. But something went *terribly* wrong, and believe me when I say terribly wrong, and I had to reinstall WinME. Now I am in a plight my Red Hat 9 installation is inaccessible since WinME has overwritten LILO. I dont think I have the startup disk for Linux. I have the installation CDs for Red Hat. What do I do?

Nobody is perfect =(
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I am nobody =D

 

[RhythmAce]

The install cd should be fine. If "Recover" doesn't do the trick, boot into single user mode and issue the lilo command. For example, I think the command would be "lilo /dev/hda". This will install lilo on the mbr of the 1st primary drive.

 

[flugh]

I read a tip _way_back_when_ that said to put in your redhat install cd, boot it up. At the boot: prompt, put:

linux root=<your root partition> initrd=

That would use the kernel on the CD without loading the installation program, but instead use your regular / partition. Run lilo, should be able to reboot cleanly.

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JBR

 

[tumblweed]

I read something in the College Linux web page, about installing linux first, and then windows because windows overwrites the MBR and detects the prescence of the other operating system and gives you a boot option. but wait, that was for win 2k/xp. Speaking of which, I installed Lilo and lost XP, but linux (college linux) ran fine. then i had to use a "Boot Magic" floppy from Partition Magic to regain XP and then lost linux. and probably Lilo (again). im thinking of running a second drive instead of sharing one. but will this resolve lilo or MBR issues between XP and linux boots?

 

[TheBigBasicQ]

I issued the following command and got LILO back.

/sbin/lilo

Nobody is perfect =(
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.
.
.
I am nobody =D

 

[flugh]

Probably won't fix it, as Windows just likes being the first available drive. I'd say your best bet is to make a boot floppy and deal with it that way. Personally, I have no problem with my current dual-boot. It's never been an issue unless I reinstalled Windows (you know MS, move your mouse, reboot, type too fast, reinstall), but having any distribution's installation CD laying around provided tools to fix it (or a boot floppy, if I wasn't too lazy to make it!).

The second drive is really nice, since you don't have to worry about losing windows data during a Linux install. I prefer using my second drive as a 'data' drive, putting "My Documents" there (music, misc files, etc), so that I can access when running Linux too.

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JBR

 

[TheBigBasicQ]

flugh, according to me the first part of your reply is a little ambiguous. I had installed WinME and Linux and setup LILO on the MBR of the first drive(primary hdd, hda1). It was working well. But then due to some problems that I encountered I needed to reinstall Windows. Due to which the MBR was overwritten so I lost LILO. After researching a bit I found that running /sbin/lilo would reinstall LILO on the MBR and it worked well ^^

Nobody is perfect =(
.
.
.
.
I am nobody =D

 

[manarth]

Installing windows will always overwrite the MBR.

Windows will not recognise partitions which aren't FAT or NTFS. If your Linux Partition is ext3 (which is usual) windows won't give you the option of dual booting.

If you want windows to control the booting process, lilo (or another linux loader) has to be installed on the linux partition. Windows cannot natively boot linux.

If you're installing a dual boot, the easy way is to install windows first, then install linux. Linux boots windows better than windows booting linux.

/sbin/lilo will reinstall lilo into the MBR based on the settings found in /etc/lilo.conf

<marc> i wonder what will happen if i press this...[ul][li]please tell us if our suggestion has helped[/li][li]need some help? faq581-3339[/li][/ul]

 

[RhythmAce]

so in other words, I came the closest to being right. ;-)

 

[flugh]

Except for that whole Redhat's the best distro thing ;-)

Sorry if I was ambiguous. I was looking at it as 'lost lilo, need to get back into Linux but don't have a boot disk'. Replies to threads should show a timestamp (after 10:00PM is VERY late for me, I'm up early) and if a beer or two has been stirred into the brain after work ;-)

RythmAce: by the way, don't tell anyone, but I'm running Redhat and Fedora here now, trying to put together a desktop for the office. Ssshh!

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JBR

 

[RhythmAce]

mum's the word