Lilo reinstall
Shannon Johnson
I'm having a problem with lilo. I just installed Red Hat 6.0 on a 23.8
gb hard drive, partitioned into 3 parts: Win98 (/dev/hda1 with 22.3 gb),
Linux swap (500 mb), and Linux (/dev/hda2 with 1 gb). Ever since I first
installed it, the only way I can get into Linux is to use a boot disk,
which takes about 5 minutes on my brand new P3 600 w/128 mb ram. I asked
a couple people to give me some help on how to set lilo on the MBR, but
every time I run "/sbin/lilo" or use linuxconf in X, it gives me the
error:
Executing /sbin/lilo
* Warning: device 0x0302 exceeds 1024 cylinder limit
* geo_comp_addr: Cylinder number is too big (2996 > 1023)
* return 1
Executing some Sysc init scripts
Then it stops. I have lilo version 21, but I don't know how to reinstall
it. I'm definitely a beginner when it comes to linux. My only experience
has been in the past week. Anyone have any ideas?
Adrian Hands
You need the linux root to begin below cylinder 1024.
For this reason, I normally put the root partition before the swap
partition.
I believe Linux handles multiple partitions better than ms-win,
(with ms-win, if you have two partitions, you have two drive letters,
right ?)
so you might consider making a small linux partition first, then
windows, then a big linux partition and then swap.
That way, you can put the files lilo needs (/boot directory for sure,
maybe others?)
in the small partition.
Gerald Willmann
> In article <3820B98C...@cub.kcnet.org>, Shannon Johnson wrote:
> >
> >I'm having a problem with lilo. I just installed Red Hat 6.0 on a 23.8
> >gb hard drive, partitioned into 3 parts: Win98 (/dev/hda1 with 22.3 gb),
> >Linux swap (500 mb), and Linux (/dev/hda2 with 1 gb). Ever since I first
> >
> >Executing /sbin/lilo
> > * Warning: device 0x0302 exceeds 1024 cylinder limit
> > * geo_comp_addr: Cylinder number is too big (2996 > 1023)
> > * return 1
> >Executing some Sysc init scripts
> >
> >Then it stops. I have lilo version 21, but I don't know how to reinstall
>
> There is no way to install LILO on this system as it is
sure there is: just put lilo on floppy and use the floppy to boot.
You can also put the kernel on floppy but that's slower.
Gerald
--
Cameron L. Spitzer
>
>I'm having a problem with lilo. I just installed Red Hat 6.0 on a 23.8
>gb hard drive, partitioned into 3 parts: Win98 (/dev/hda1 with 22.3 gb),
>Linux swap (500 mb), and Linux (/dev/hda2 with 1 gb). Ever since I first
>
>Executing /sbin/lilo
> * Warning: device 0x0302 exceeds 1024 cylinder limit
> * geo_comp_addr: Cylinder number is too big (2996 > 1023)
> * return 1
>Executing some Sysc init scripts
>
>Then it stops. I have lilo version 21, but I don't know how to reinstall
There is no way to install LILO on this system as it is
currently partitioned. That's because there are no partitions which
end below cylinder 1024. Use loadlin instead, or re-partition the disk
as follows:
/dev/hda1 3 MB /boot
/dev/hda2 22 GB Microsoft
/dev/hda3 128 MB Linux swap
/dev/hda4 the rest / (Linux root, usr, var, home)
If you bought Official Red Hat 6.0 you are entitled to factory support;
complain loudly to Red Hat for not giving you a workable boot strategy.
They should, at least, have told you that the Lilo-related files need
to be on a partition that ends below cylinder 1024.
Red Hat is rolling in money these days. They could afford to hire someone
full time to solve the 1023 cylinder problem, if they wanted to.
Cameron
Cameron L. Spitzer
>You need the linux root to begin below cylinder 1024.
That's wrong. You only need the partition where the Lilo-related files
are to be accessible to BIOS. For most BIOSes, that means cylinders
below 1024 on the first drive.
The Lilo-related files do not have to be on "the linux root."
They can be on a Microsoft file system, as long as it is not
Stackered, compressed, or encrypted and it ends below cylinder 1024.
The whole drive can be infected with OnTrack Disk Manager or
EZ-Drive; that's irrelevant.
Your Linux distribution will, if you let it, install Lilo-related files
in the directory /boot/. That directory does not have to be on the
root partition. You could even make a small Linux partition on the first
couple of cylinders and mount it as /boot/.
Cameron
Cameron L. Spitzer
Gerald Willmann wrote:
>On Thu, 4 Nov 1999, Cameron L. Spitzer wrote:
>
>> >
>> >I'm having a problem with lilo. I just installed Red Hat 6.0 on a 23.8
>> >gb hard drive, partitioned into 3 parts: Win98 (/dev/hda1 with 22.3 gb),
>> >Linux swap (500 mb), and Linux (/dev/hda2 with 1 gb). Ever since I first
>> There is no way to install LILO on this system as it is
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>sure there is: just put lilo on floppy and use the floppy to boot.
Then LILO is on the floppy, not on the 23.8 GB hard drive.
And lilo(8) will not be able to generate a map of a bootimage
anywhere on that hard drive, partitioned the way it is, because there
is no partition on that drive that ends below cylinder 1024.
The lilo installer will complain that get_geom returned bad numbers.
>You can also put the kernel on floppy but that's slower.
It's probably the only way to use LILO to boot that machine,
without upgrading the BIOS to boot from a second hard drive.
Cameron
Neil Koozer
A lilo floppy would have to have the kernel on the floppy because of the
location of the hd partitions. Then it's just as slow as any other kernel
floppy. The slowness was the reason for the original post.
Neil.
Leonard Evens
>
> I'm having a problem with lilo. I just installed Red Hat 6.0 on a 23.8
> gb hard drive, partitioned into 3 parts: Win98 (/dev/hda1 with 22.3 gb),
> Linux swap (500 mb), and Linux (/dev/hda2 with 1 gb). Ever since I first
> which takes about 5 minutes on my brand new P3 600 w/128 mb ram. I asked
> a couple people to give me some help on how to set lilo on the MBR, but
> every time I run "/sbin/lilo" or use linuxconf in X, it gives me the
> error:
>
> * Warning: device 0x0302 exceeds 1024 cylinder limit
> * geo_comp_addr: Cylinder number is too big (2996 > 1023)
> * return 1
> Executing some Sysc init scripts
>
> Then it stops. I have lilo version 21, but I don't know how to reinstall
> has been in the past week. Anyone have any ideas?
Several alternatives have already been proposed. Just a couple
of comments.
You can create a /boot directory in your windows partition
and link to it. This has been suggested, but it is also
discussed on the RedHat web page somewhere or other. But
as they point out, if you do it this way, you probably want
to mark those files as unmovable by defrag, or else you
will have to redo it every time you defrag the windows
partition.
If you decide you want to continue to boot from a floppy,
you might consider copying the kernel directly to a floppy
with
cd /boot
dd if=kernel_name of=/dev/fd0
rdev /dev/fd0 /dev/root_partion
where you substitute the appropriate things for kernel_name
and root_partition. I've found that the boot floppy made
during installation (or by mkbootdisk) takes extremely long
too load on many newer machines. This must have something
to do with the way the BIOS reads floppies, but I don't
understand it. On the other hand, boot floppies made by
copying the kernel directly to the floppy load relatively
quickly. The process does not take a whole lot longer than
booting from the hard disk.
--
Leonard Evens l...@math.nwu.edu 847-491-5537
Dept. of Mathematics, Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL 60208
Villy Kruse
The 'compact' option in lilo.conf can make a dramatic difference with
boot floppies. Tried that with a Caldera install boot floppy a couple
of releases ago. It changed the time to boot from 'for ever' to reasonable.
--
Villy