[ale] Redhat LILO Problems

[Janis Kerrigan Roberts]

I have one more option to add to the list. You may remember that I had
a similiar problem and fiddled with it for a while, including trying
some of the options below. I finally brute-forced it...

Option 4 
   Created a template boot floppy by copying RedHat's boot floppy 
   and then modified the lilo.conf to support my configuration
   (e.g. root=/dev/hdb2). As a precaution, I removed all the links
   on the floppy and hardcoded the path to the boot.b, etc. files
   which were in directory /startup (if I remember right). I did
   that so that I would know for certain that lilo was looking at
   the right files. Then I re-ran lilo with the -r option. Voila!
   Not the perfect solution, because I have to boot from floppy, 
   but at least it works. (I also recompiled my own kernel to put 
   on the floppy, but I don't think that had anything to do with
   the fix...The LILO docs say that you can't boot off the 2nd
   ide drive) 
   

> As you read in the documentation, the second-stage loader is unable to load
> the kernel. Make sure your kernel is in the first 1024 cylinders of the 
> disk. Looking at the partitioning you've done on /dev/hdb, it is  likely
> that the kernel or any of the files used by lilo at boot-time (files in the
> /boot directory) are outside the 1024 cylinder range. There are several
> options you can try:
> 
> Option 1
>    Repartition /dev/hdb, making /dev/hdb1 the linux ext2 partition and
>    /dev/hdb2 the swap partition (this will for sure force /boot to be
>    within the 1024 cylinder range). 
> 
> Option 2
>    Use the LINEAR option in the lilo.conf file. Remove the compact
>    option before adding the LINEAR option. (i.e. change 'compact' to
>    'linear' in lilo.conf. Read the lilo documentation for more info.
> 
> Option 3
>    Put your kernel and the contents of the /boot directory in /dev/hdc1
>    since it is very likely that the /boot files will be in the first 1024
>    cylinders in that drive (because it only has 1572 cylinders there is a
>    "better" chance of hitting the <1024 zone). And mount /boot from 
>    this drive.
>    
> IMHO, Option #1 is the "proper" solution. If you still have trouble
> after doing #1 try #2. Number 3 is, lacking a better term, a "kludge".
> 
> Option #2 is rather quick and it *might* work with your current setup,
> so you might try that first.
> 
> There is still another option: to specify the disk geometry directly in the
> lilo.conf file. I don't believe this will solve your problem though.
> If you've tried the options above and still have a problem, you can email
> me and I'll try to help out.
> 
> BTW, your post is one of the best I've seen (because all the relevant 
> information was included) from users asking for help.....keep that
> habit......

Ditto...

Janis