Calling all LILO experts! Double trouble!

[onederer]

I got a new machine! It is a DELL 8250, with a 3.02GHZ hyperthreading chip. It came with 128MB RDRAM, and a CDR/RW and DVD+R/RW-CDR/RW combo drive. The floppy was extra, but necessary for Linux. Windows XP-Pro came installed in the system.Now, for the problem. On boot up, a system password request comes up to prevent tampering with the BIOS and the system alltogether. Then a menu comes up asking wether I want to get into the Bios, or to continue. Then another menu that asks if I want to boot WinXP or the System Recovery. Yeah! Lots of menues! Then comes up the menu to choose the operator and the correct password.The setup is that there is a small DOS partition at the begining of the 120GB hardrive. This stores the system recovery utilities. The second partition, /dev/hda2, resides WinXP-Pro. The second hard drive, an 80GB Maxtor, holds Mandrake 9.1. /dev/hda2, is an NTFS formatted partition.I had all kinds of problems installing Mandrake 9.1, but finally succeeded. On the second attempt, I made a boot floppy to access Mandrake. While attempting to install LILO for dual booting, Lilo destroyed the MBR on the first drive. I could not access the Windows, nor Linux with the floppy. All I got was 998's on the screen. This is where I panicked. After hours of fiddling around, I finally found how to restore the MBR for WindowsXP-Pro, on the NTFS partition. But LILO refuses to install itself, without destroying the WinXP boot sector. And when that happens, the whole thing isn't worth beans! At the moment, I can gain access to Linux by using the floppy image. But I sure would like to set it up with a hard drive boot-up.I have no idea wether it is the multiple WindowsXP menus that intefering with the successful installation of LILO.So, if you are a LILO expert, I would appreciate to hear from you. I would love to dual boot into Windows or Linux using a dual boot menu, at start-up. If you've overcome ths problem, I would like to read your story.Thanks

[Agent007]

Hi,Have u tried out GRUB? I'll outline the procedure below:-1) Log-in as root, open up a terminal box (xterm)2) Type "grub" (no quotes)(the prompt will change to grub); (type in whatever is in quotes)grub> "find /boot/grub/stage1"(u'll get the partition where the stage is installed)example:- (hd0,3)(here we will install grub on the MBR) ; (substitute hd0 if u get a diff output above)grub> "setup (hd0)"grub> "quit"#rebootIf this works and u are able to get into Mandrake but not Windows, then we will have to do some changes. Let us know, if booting into Mandrake works.

[Guest genaldar]

I'm no expert, but I've fought with lilo a little bit. The problem is lilo is trying to install into the mbr. The easiest thing to do is create a little boot partition and have lilo install there. Then you can put linux (aka lilo) into the windows boot menu. Here is a link to a website explaining how to list linux on the windows bootmenu.Hope that helps. btw add some more ram, its shameful that a new machine with the fastest processor available comes with so little ram. I'd reccomend ddr if the motherboard can use it. The fastest ddr has a slight edge over the faster rambus (at least in the handful of benchmarks I've seen). And since its much, much cheaper it makes it a great deal.

[quint]

This worked for me (dual-boot /w WinXP and Mandrake 9.1): I had BootMagic installed, and before I installed Mandrake, i listed the Linux partition that I created, in the BootMagic configuration screen. Then went ahead and installed Mandrake, and told it to put LILO in the root partition of Mandrake; when I re-booted the first time, BM gave me a choice of XP or Linux - selecting Linux brings me to LILO, which is where I've been staying since the installation. Hope this helps somehow, but it's just a "workaround"; the Linux experts here, are the one's to listen to and absorb. Best of good fortune to you.

[Bruno]

Welcome to the forum onederer !! :)I hope you got your problems sorted with the answers above. If not let us know.NOTE: By default Lilo installs itself always ( overwrites ) in the MBR.There is a post about Lilo in the ¨Starters Tips¨ with an example where windows is added at the bottom.The only thing I always really fear is a pre-installed XP, sometimes with a ( hidden ) recovery partition at the end of the disk or the setup like you have yourself a small dos partition at the start.In the case where you get a ¨real¨ XP CD with your computer, there often is no problem, but ( as example ) those Packard Bell bundled CD´s ( or other computer brands CD´s, dunno what Dell does ) can really get you in to troubles.I have to compliment you on the complete way you did compose your question ! A good discription of the hardware, the problems and the things you tried yourself to solve those problems, makes it easy to find the answers.So let us know how things are running right now. Bruno

[onederer]

Thanks everyone!This is the best forum that I ever have been to. You're all a great bunch! Before this, I had posted elsewhere, and felt very lucky if I ever even got one reply! This is the type of forum that encourages people to get involved and stick with Linux. Serious people who offer serious advice, without flaming someone who is trying to learn from more experienced people.As far as to the memory. To the best of my knowledge, according to the manual, the mother board will only accept RDram. There are two versions, and it will accept either. It turns out that the RAM that I have in there now, is the fastest. And if the slower version is added in there, then the faster one will slow down to match the slower ram. It won't be easy to install more RAM. That ram is very expensive, and just my luck, needs to be installed in pairs! I thought that I was over with that, when I dealth with EDO ram. Just my luck that I had to end up with RDram, instead of the DDram.I have used Grub before, in other systems. The reason that I didn't use it this time is because I got cold feet when I saw what LILO did, and how much time I lost, just recovering from what LILO caused. I was afraid that Grub would do the same thing. Apparantly there seems to be no room at the begining of the WinXP-PRO system, to make room for a boot loader. And also, Linux may have a problem dealing with NTFS, so it destroyed the MBR instead. Linux cannot write into NTFS sectors, as far as I know! And by the way, WinXP was, preinstalled in this machine. I didn't even have to call Microsoft to "activate" the software package. Dell did it for me. But I found out the hard way, that the primary drive was already partitioned into two sections. And the first partition is not even a FATxx file. It is only listed as a "DOS" partition. It houses the restoration files. The rest has all been formatted as an NTFS partition. I don't plan on changing that. Linux has its own drive. Also, I had told LILO to install itself on the first partition of LINUX, which is where the floppy currently finds it.I can't give you any results just yet. I have to wait 'till I have enough time on my hands, in case that I have to chase and "recover" again WindowsXP. I am also wondering if any of those Win menus have something to do with the inteference with installing a boot menu. Also, anyone know how to utilize the WindowsXP 'BOOT' parameters? That might be able to get me to the Linux drive??? Or is the Win "BOOT" menu only good to dual boot other Windows xx versions. I remember when I installed Win NT on an older version. Win 95 and Linux were already installed on that machine. Then I installed WinNT. That was working nicely. LILO was asking if I wanted Linux or Windows?Then the NT booloader asked me if I wanted Win95, or WinNT.Before I take the next step, I would appreciate more feedback from all of you. Especially when it deals with the WinXP side. NTFS may be the thing that is causing problems, since Linux can only read it and not write to it.What do you think? And Quint, did you install WinXP on a FAT32 drive, or on an NTFS partition?Cheers!

[greengeek]

I think your biggest problem is going to be that pre installed Dell version of XP and it's other stuff on your hard drive. I always install a real version of whatever Window's system I want and then install Linux.Joy

[Bruno]

onederer,Thanks for your kind words towards the friends on this forum, they sure all give the best of themselves to keep the sun shining !I never got beyond Windows 98SE, but there are plenty of XP experts here on the forum. In case that you do not get the answer you´re looking for ( can´t imagine you wouldn´t ) let us know and we will call in a few heavyweight friends from the XP department of this forum ! Bruno

[Agent007]

hello onederer,I'm a bit confused here....

Apparantly there seems to be no room at the begining of the WinXP-PRO system, to make room for a boot loader. And also, Linux may have a problem dealing with NTFS, so it destroyed the MBR instead. Linux cannot write into NTFS sectors, as far as I know!

U mentioned that /dev/hda2 is NTFS. That means /dev/hda1 is DOS correct? If this is true, then the NTFS sectors will NOT be touched at all since ur installing the boot-loader in the MBR. Now, if ur actually installing it in /dev/hda2, then there could be problems there....Make sure the bootloader goes in /dev/hdaTry again with LILO and c, if not restore MBR again and try GRUBThing is GRUB works differently from LILO. Does'nt matter if the partition is NTFS formatted, since nothing is actually executed from there. NTFS is not the prob here.Btw, have u considered fdisking the whole HDD and reinstalling everything from scratch? greengeek, has a point about the preinstalled version of XP. Pls confirm on GRUB..Btw, if there is a prob with GRUB too, then u need to restore the MBR as u did previously. The menu u get from WinXP is normal and can be disabled..all the best.