[ale] Lilo with Redhat 4.0

[Janis Kerrigan Roberts]

Hi Michael-

I'm really looking forward to reading any responses that you get. I
was just about to post an identical message to ale. My hardware setup
is similiar to yours (kind of... DOS on the first hard drive, and
Linux on another) which I'm suspecting is part of the problem. I
tried various things to fix it and I'm now just entering "linux
root=/dev/hdc1" at the "boot:" prompt to be able to access my root
partition. Obviously, not a good long term solution. One of the
questions that I have has to do with the *order* with which lilo does
stuff.  When the boot=/boot/boot.b is specified, how does lilo
interpret it? With /dev/hdb2 as / so that it's looking at that device
for the boot sector? Or what? One thing I did was to comment out the
"boot=" and "install=" lines. That booted be into the correct root
partition, but I was getting some *wierd* problems after that (which
may or may not have had anything to do with that change). By wierd, I
mean that occasionally init would become a zombie process. Most
delightful! ;-) 

Anyway, if you get any responses that aren't posted to ale, I'd really
appreciate it if you could forward them to me or post them.

Thanks
Janis

> 
> I installed the new Redhat 4.0 distribution on my machine and everything
> worked beautifully with the exception of the Lilo installation. I have 
> been trying to get Lilo to work for a week and I've run out of ideas. 
> 
> On bootup, I get the 'LI' prompt and then my system freezes. According 
> to the documentation, "The first stage boot loader was able to load the 
> second stage boot loader, but has failed to execute it. This can either 
> be caused by a geometry mismatch or by moving /boot/boot.b without 
> running the map installer."
> 
> I'm not sure what to do at this point. /boot/boot.b is updated by 
> running /sbin/lilo which is used to install Lilo, so this should not be 
> the problem. I do see something that could be a geometry mismatch, but I 
> don't know exactly how to interperate the information. According to the 
> output of dmsg (shown below), "hda: Maxtor 71626 A, 1554MB w/64kB Cache, 
> LBA, CHS=789/64/63". According to the output of /sbin/lilo -q (shown 
> below), "Device 0x0342: BIOS drive 0x81, 64 heads, 786 cylinders, 63 
> sectors. Partition offset: 68544 sectors". I am guessing that BIOS drive 
> 0x81 is /dev/hda but I do not know how to determine this. Neither of 
> these parameter reports match my drive parameters which are: 16 heads, 
> 3158 cylinders, 63 sectors.
> 
> Does anyone understand if this is my problem, and if so, exactly what 
> does it mean and how do I correct it??
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> My system:
>   486DX120
>   /dev/hda = 16 HD, 3158 CYL, 63 SEC, 1554 MB
> 	/dev/hda1 = Windows 95
>   /dev/hdb = 16 HD, 3146 CYL, 63 SEC, 1548 MB
> 	/dev/hdb1 = Linux Swap (32MB)
> 	/dev/hdb2 = Linux ext2
>   /dev/hdc = 16 HD, 1572 CYL, 63 SEC,  774 MB
> 	/dev/hdc1 = MSDOS 6.22
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> THE FOLLOWING IS A COPY OF MY /etc/lilo.conf:
> 
> boot=/dev/hda
> map=/boot/map
> install=/boot/boot.b
> timeout=0
> compact
> prompt
> verbose=5
> image=/boot/vmlinuz
> 	label=linux
> 	root=/dev/hdb2
> 	read-only
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> THE FOLLOWING IS THE OUTPUT OF dmsg:
> 
> Console: 16 point font, 400 scans
> Console: colour VGA+ 80x25, 1 virtual console (max 63)
> Calibrating delay loop.. ok - 3.71 BogoMIPS
> Memory: 30724k/32768k available (752k kernel code, 384k reserved, 908k
> data)
> This processor honours the WP bit even when in supervisor mode. Good.
> Swansea University Computer Society NET3.035 for Linux 2.0
> NET3: Unix domain sockets 0.12 for Linux NET3.035.
> Swansea University Computer Society TCP/IP for NET3.034
> IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP
> Checking 386/387 coupling... Ok, fpu using exception 16 error reporting.
> Checking 'hlt' instruction... Ok.
> Linux version 2.0.18 (root at localhost) (gcc version 2.7.2) #2 Fri Nov 1
> 10:43:11 EST 1996
> Serial driver version 4.13 with no serial options enabled
> tty00 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
> tty01 at 0x02f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A
> lp1 at 0x0378, (polling)
> ftape-2.08 960314 for Linux 1.3.70
> Ramdisk driver initialized : 16 ramdisks of 4096K size
> hda: Maxtor 71626 A, 1554MB w/64kB Cache, LBA, CHS=789/64/63
> hdb: Conner Peripherals 1620MB - CFS1621A, 1548MB w/0kB Cache, LBA,
> CHS=3146/16/63
> hdc: Conner Peripherals 810MB - CFA810A, 774MB w/256kB Cache, LBA,
> CHS=1572/16/63
> hdd: NEC CD-ROM DRIVE:251, ATAPI CDROM drive
> ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
> ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
> Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
> Started kswapd v 1.4.2.2 
> FDC 0 is an 8272A
> PPP: version 2.2.0 (dynamic channel allocation)
> TCP compression code copyright 1989 Regents of the University of
> California
> PPP Dynamic channel allocation code copyright 1995 Caldera, Inc.
> PPP line discipline registered.
> Partition check:
>  hda: hda1
>  hdb: [PTBL] [786/64/63] hdb1 hdb2
>  hdc: [PTBL] [786/32/63] hdc1
> VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.
> Adding Swap: 34236k swap-space
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> THE FOLLOWING IS THE OUTPUT OF /sbin/lilo -q:
> 
> Device 0x0342: BIOS drive 0x81, 64 heads, 786 cylinders,
>                63 sectors. Partition offset: 68544 sectors.
> Reading boot sector from /dev/hda
> Global settings:
>   Delay before booting: 3119.5 seconds
>   Command-line timeout: 2781.6 seconds
>   Always enter boot prompt
>   Boot prompt can be accessed from COM191
>   Boot prompt message is 61834 bytes
>   No default boot command line
> Images:
>   linux           * <dev=0x81,hd=28,cyl=107,sct=17>
>     No password
>     Boot command-line won't be locked
>     VGA mode is taken from boot image
>     Kernel is loaded "low"
>     No initial RAM disk
> Device 0x0342: BIOS drive 0x81, 64 heads, 786 cylinders,
>                63 sectors. Partition offset: 68544 sectors.
> fd 4: offset 0 -> dev 129, head 28, track 107, sector 11
> fd 4: offset 512 -> dev 129, head 28, track 107, sector 12
> fd 4: offset 1024 -> dev 129, head 28, track 107, sector 13
> fd 4: offset 1536 -> dev 129, head 28, track 107, sector 14
> fd 4: offset 2048 -> dev 129, head 28, track 107, sector 15
> fd 4: offset 2560 -> dev 129, head 28, track 107, sector 16
> fd 4: offset 3072 -> dev 129, head 28, track 107, sector 17
> Device 0x0342: BIOS drive 0x81, 64 heads, 786 cylinders,
>                63 sectors. Partition offset: 68544 sectors.
> fd 4: offset 0 -> dev 129, head 28, track 107, sector 11
> fd 4: offset 512 -> dev 129, head 28, track 107, sector 12
> fd 4: offset 1024 -> dev 129, head 28, track 107, sector 13
> fd 4: offset 1536 -> dev 129, head 28, track 107, sector 14
> fd 4: offset 2048 -> dev 129, head 28, track 107, sector 15
>     No fallback
> Device 0x0342: BIOS drive 0x81, 64 heads, 786 cylinders,
>                63 sectors. Partition offset: 68544 sectors.
> fd 4: offset 0 -> dev 129, head 28, track 107, sector 11
> fd 4: offset 512 -> dev 129, head 28, track 107, sector 12
> fd 4: offset 1024 -> dev 129, head 28, track 107, sector 13
> fd 4: offset 1536 -> dev 129, head 28, track 107, sector 14
> fd 4: offset 2048 -> dev 129, head 28, track 107, sector 15
> fd 4: offset 2560 -> dev 129, head 28, track 107, sector 16
>     Options: "ro root=342"
> 
> -- 
> Ciao,
> 	Michael Morris
> 	mjm at avana.net
>