h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've been using linux for a while, but recently performed a low-level hard drive wipe to put on a clean copy of everything (I do this yearly)...


Anyway, I manage to do a Gnome modified workstation installation and it works great. I partition a little area for windows because at my other house they win't let me put on linux ...
I get my system the way I like it and do a clean win98 install.

It overwrites the MBR and screws up everything, locking me out of my Rhat 6.1 system. I reeinstall Linux and now Lilo won't recognize Windows. How can I reconcile them?

First thing: MAKE SURE YOU HAVE BOOTDISKS. This is very important (which is why I put it in caps). That way, when you install windoze, you can boot into Linux and reinstall LILO.

Now you will have to edit your /etc/lilo.conf file (judging by your complaint) as root. This file should have a bunch of information at the start which you shouldn't have to change, then a section something like:

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.2.15
label=linux
root=/dev/hda2

which is the Linux entry. To use windoze as well, you will need another section:

other=/dev/hda1
label=win

which is usually added in by the Linux installation. If you ever want to add other operating systems (or a different kernel version) you just add/modify these sections. Then just run /sbin/lilo and (fingers crossed) you're away.

Red Hat provides a program to help you do that, I think. I can't remember what it's called as I switched away from Red Hat (or DeadRat as I prefer to call it) years ago. Slackware's is called liloconfig, but it's definitely a Slackware-only tool. Mandrake put theirs in their Mandrake Control Center. It's possible that you might find something in LinuxConf to help.

Failing that of course, definitely edit /etc/lilo.conf, but do it CAREFULLY and always make sure you have the boot disks to hand!

Also make sure you're certain of the partition numbers before you start.

And next time you do a clean install, install Windows first. It makes it a lot easier, mostly because Linux installers are designed to dual/triple/quadruple boot, while Windows is designed to be stupid.

Red Hat provides a program to help you do that, I think. I can't remember what it's called as I switched away from Red Hat (or DeadRat as I prefer to call it) years ago. Slackware's is called liloconfig, but it's definitely a Slackware-only tool. Mandrake put theirs in their Mandrake Control Center. It's possible that you might find something in LinuxConf to help.

Failing that of course, definitely edit /etc/lilo.conf, but do it CAREFULLY and always make sure you have the boot disks to hand!

Also make sure you're certain of the partition numbers before you start.

And next time you do a clean install, install Windows first. It makes it a lot easier, mostly because Linux installers are designed to dual/triple/quadruple boot, while Windows is designed to be stupid.

Right now I'm doing a clean reeinstall of windoze after wiping everything low-level.

When I get home I'll check...

Rhat 6.1, as far as I know, during my three installs, has'nt prompted me for a boot disk creation, and I can't seem to find the file boot.img, which purportedly exists, by their documentation.

Thanks, though, I'll take a look.

Isn't making the root/boot disk one of the last things on the install of RH?

I never saw it...

I was doing a custom gnome...
It gave me a message showing the rpms, and it said three hours, I went to bed and it was there in the morning

I'm not sure, but Slackware certainly lets you do it, and before bootable CDs it was the only way to install my distro of choice. Slackware CDs still come with all the disk images and a DOS version of rawrite for those without bootable CD drives, or for those who want to make themselves a set of boot disks.

I don't think it comes with boot/root disk images though, only the two-disk kind.

This is sorta off the point... but I've had a few burned data CD's, and my computer (4x cdrom, HP 7030) has a heck of a time trying to read them. I have rhat 6.2, but when I put it in... whirr, whee whee whee.....whee, tttttttstttstt, Whir whee whir...

And so on

This happens even under windoze, and linux...not just dos.
Other burned CD's it reads, albeit slowly.

It's probably because it's an old CD drive (did you really say quad-speed?) They're not designed to read CD-Rs, which have a lesser difference between the pits and flats than a normal CD-ROM. CD-RWs are even lower contrast, so there are some older drives that read CD-Rs that don't read CD-RWs. I'm told the drive in an original Sony PlayStation is one of those.

Oh, really...

That explains a lot!

Thanks.


Viva Linux! I finally got the system working.

Did a complete low level dual-partition format on the drive.
Put on a clean Win 98 se install.
Then installed linux in advanced mode. I still didn't get asked for a boot disk so I pulled out my trusty backlog and Viola: Mkbootdisk.exe



That solved My problem, and lilo worked. Tried Powerquest Bootmagic, but it wrecked the machine.

I now have 23 boot disks, cached in various places.

I think 23 boot disks might be a little on the ridiculous side...

And 5 of them are in a sealed lead box 3 inches thick!!!

Are any of the backups on a diferent continent

Go to {URL removed by moderator]...

They are cached through a university there...

If I need, I can download them on a friend's PC.

What's wrong w/ china?

It's the most removed place I can think of....

They say, dig a hole to china, cuz it's on the other side of the world,
so I figured a China web site that let's me get storage is the perfect place for that...

Incidentally, if you've altered the kernel and wish to make a new bootdisk, run

make bzdisk

rather than

make bzImage

Nothing wrong with China, it's just you can't post non BBC URLs in the forums on this place.