Strange behaviour by LILO

[Doug Laidlaw]

I have just reinstalled Win98, and as a result, had to reinstall LILO.

On my system I have Win98 on /dev/hda1, Mandrake on the rest of
/dev/hda
and /dev/hdb7 (/usr/src is on /dev/hdb7,) a Win98 backup on /dev/hdb1
and Knoppix installed on /dev/hdb5. The swap partitions are /dev/hda6
and /dev/hdb6, and Mandrake's /boot is on /dev/hda5.

Mandrake's /etc has the same lilo.conf and fstab as before with
boot=/dev/hda, which should boot Mandrake 9.0, with Win98 as an
alternative, and Knoppix omitted, but for some reason the Mandrake
Rescue Disk installs a bootloader which runs a Knoppix system with
Mandrake's kernel. The icon at the beginning of the boot messages is
Mandrake's. Once booted, Knoppix can access only its
own /etc/fstab and lilo.conf. Furthermore, it shows all the
limitations
of Knoppix, such as supporting only ext2 filesystems. I assume that
some
modules are not being detected during bootup.

I can't think of any reason why this should happen. Any ideas please.

And for some distinct reason. I can't connect to any news servers
with Windoze, so I am forced to use Google Groups.

Doug.

[JohnInSD At san DOT rr dot COM]

Have you re-run /sbin/lilo?

'lilo.conf' is only examined by lilo during boot loader installation; i.e.,
when /sbin/lilo is run. It is NEVER examined at boot time.

--John


On 10 Sep 2003 04:25:45 -0700, [email]laidlaws@myaccess.com.au[/email] (Doug Laidlaw) wrote:

>I have just reinstalled Win98, and as a result, had to reinstall LILO.
>
>On my system I have Win98 on /dev/hda1, Mandrake on the rest of
>/dev/hda
>and /dev/hdb7 (/usr/src is on /dev/hdb7,) a Win98 backup on /dev/hdb1
>and Knoppix installed on /dev/hdb5. The swap partitions are /dev/hda6
>and /dev/hdb6, and Mandrake's /boot is on /dev/hda5.
>
>Mandrake's /etc has the same lilo.conf and fstab as before with
>boot=/dev/hda, which should boot Mandrake 9.0, with Win98 as an
>alternative, and Knoppix omitted, but for some reason the Mandrake
>Rescue Disk installs a bootloader which runs a Knoppix system with
>Mandrake's kernel. The icon at the beginning of the boot messages is
>Mandrake's. Once booted, Knoppix can access only its
>own /etc/fstab and lilo.conf. Furthermore, it shows all the
>limitations
>of Knoppix, such as supporting only ext2 filesystems. I assume that
>some
>modules are not being detected during bootup.
>
>I can't think of any reason why this should happen. Any ideas please.
>
>And for some distinct reason. I can't connect to any news servers
>with Windoze, so I am forced to use Google Groups.
>
>Doug.

[Doug Laidlaw]

Yes, I did, John, and I could see that the Knoppix lilo.conf was being used.
After much chasing around, I eventually found that I had Knoppix' lilo.conf
where the Mandrake one should have been. Lilo.conf~ was a backup of an
earlier Mandrake setup with Knoppix as a further OS. I have no idea how it
got changed.

Having restored the lilo.conf, I then got continual messages that my /boot
partition was already mounted,and e2fsck could not continue, even though
its entry in fstab is AFTER /root, and mtab wasn't displaying everything
that was mounted. (This seems to happen every time the two get confused
like this.) I have found only one discussion of the "already mounted"
error, by BitTwister, and it didn't go long enough to give me any clues.
BT seemed to suggest that it was being mounted by a bootup script
somewhere, but that is way over my head. Someone once found out that using
Ctrl-C to break the script at that point was a "fix", and he could even run
startx, but I had found previously that I was getting errors in X.

I finished up reinstalling.

Doug.

JohnInSD At san DOT rr dot COM wrote:

> Have you re-run /sbin/lilo?
>
> 'lilo.conf' is only examined by lilo during boot loader installation;
> i.e.,
> when /sbin/lilo is run. It is NEVER examined at boot time.
>
> --John
>
>
> On 10 Sep 2003 04:25:45 -0700, [email]laidlaws@myaccess.com.au[/email] (Doug Laidlaw)
> wrote:
>

>>I have just reinstalled Win98, and as a result, had to reinstall LILO.
>>
>>On my system I have Win98 on /dev/hda1, Mandrake on the rest of
>>/dev/hda
>>and /dev/hdb7 (/usr/src is on /dev/hdb7,) a Win98 backup on /dev/hdb1
>>and Knoppix installed on /dev/hdb5. The swap partitions are /dev/hda6
>>and /dev/hdb6, and Mandrake's /boot is on /dev/hda5.
>>
>>Mandrake's /etc has the same lilo.conf and fstab as before with
>>boot=/dev/hda, which should boot Mandrake 9.0, with Win98 as an
>>alternative, and Knoppix omitted, but for some reason the Mandrake
>>Rescue Disk installs a bootloader which runs a Knoppix system with
>>Mandrake's kernel. The icon at the beginning of the boot messages is
>>Mandrake's. Once booted, Knoppix can access only its
>>own /etc/fstab and lilo.conf. Furthermore, it shows all the
>>limitations
>>of Knoppix, such as supporting only ext2 filesystems. I assume that
>>some
>>modules are not being detected during bootup.
>>
>>I can't think of any reason why this should happen. Any ideas please.
>>
>>And for some distinct reason. I can't connect to any news servers
>>with Windoze, so I am forced to use Google Groups.
>>
>>Doug.

--
Registered Linux User No. 277548.
They say lightning never strikes twice in the same place. My typing is
about as accurate. Apologies for any typos that slip in. - Doug.