[ale] Redhat LILO Problems

Omar Loggiodice ologgio at vrainn.com
Tue Nov 12 15:47:19 EST 1996


Michael Morris Writes :
:
:
: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."
:

Right..

: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.
:

BIOS drive 0x81 is /dev/hdb, /dev/hda is BIOS drive 0x80...the reason
why neither of those match your real disk geometry is because of the
address translation done to support disks with more than 1024 cylinders.
(old BIOS limitations that only affect booting in linux): Some bits in the
"Head" field are used to represent cylinders, that is why lilo
reports more heads than are present.

:-----------------------------------------------------------
:MY SYSTEM AND BIOS SETTINGS:
:  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

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......


-- 
____________________________________________________________________
            /   __  __  __  - __  __ / - _  __  ologgio at vrainn.com
  Omar R.  /__ /_/ /_/ /_/ / /_/ /_/ / /_  /-_  CIS: 74040,1543
                  __/ __/                         
___C++/6_yrs____Virtual Reality/4_yrs____Vorl_____Linux(free)_______
Never forget either the "Big Picture" or the "Small Picture"...






More information about the Ale mailing list