Help with lilo in redhat – 3557 days old

[ralpha6]

Ok so here's the scoop.

I installed Redhat 9 on a dual boot HD with windows in hda(?) and Redhat on hdb with multiple partitions. I also have another HD installed in this tower hdd1 with Mandrake on it. When installing Redhat I had it install lilo, when I should have just edited the lilo.conf from within Mandrake.

Now I can't boot to Mandrake. I need to edit lilo from within Redhat and can't figure out how to get it to boot to hdd1.

Here's the lilo.conf from Mandrake. (I mounted the HD to /mnt/mandy so I could see it )

boot=/dev/hdb
map=/boot/map
default="windows"
keytable=/boot/us.klt
prompt
nowarn
timeout=100
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
disk=/dev/hdb bios=0x80
disk=/dev/hdd bios=0x81
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux"
root=/dev/hdd1
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off quiet"
vga=788
read-only
image=/boot/2.4.21-0.25mdkcustom
label="2421-25"
root=/dev/hdd1
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.21-0.25mdkcustom.img
append="devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off quiet"
vga=788
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux-nonfb"
root=/dev/hdd1
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off"
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="failsafe"
root=/dev/hdd1
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="devfs=nomount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off failsafe"
read-only
other=/dev/hdb1
label="windows"
table=/dev/hdb

For some reason I have to log in as root to read and edit lilo.conf within Red Hat. So I'll post that in a separate reply.

[ralpha6]

And here's the lilo.conf from Redhat. I added the 2 stanza's with label=mandy and label=-2421-25.

prompt
timeout=50
default=Windows
boot=/dev/hdb
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
message=/boot/message
lba32

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-8
label=linux
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.20-8.img
read-only
append="hdc=ide-scsi root=LABEL=/"

image=/boot/vmlinuz
label=mandy
root=/dev/hdd1
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off quiet"
vga=788
read-only

image=/boot/2.4.21-0.25mdkcustom
label=2421-25
root=/dev/hdd1
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.21-0.25mdkcustom.img
append="devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off quiet"
vga=788
read-only

other=/dev/hdb1
optional
label=Windows

other=/dev/hdd1
optional
label=hdd1

I'm so confused

[Grogan]

Well... you can't just do that. Your mandrake kernel isn't in /boot while booted with redhat.

If you mounted it, you'll have to refer to it by mount point in the redhat lilo.conf file. You'll also need to know if /boot is a partition. If so, that's what you'll have to mount.

Use:
/mnt/mandy/boot/2.4.21-0.25mdkcustom

Or
/mnt/mandy/2.4.21-0.25mdkcustom

Same with your initrd line

if you've mounted the mandrake boot partition at /mnt/mandy

Don't forget to run /sbin/lilo after editing lilo.conf.

[ralpha6]

I am manually mounting this everytime I need it after Redhat is loaded.

Redhat has the partitions /tmp, /usr, /var, /boot, /home, and /

Mandrake has just / and /home.

So I can just use /mnt/mandy/2.4.21-0.25mdkcustom?

[ralpha6]

ok I edited all the stanza's to include /mnt/mandy and then ran /sbin/lilo and this is the error that I get:
# /sbin/lilo
Warning: /dev/hdb is not on the first disk
Added linux
Added mandy
Added 2421-25
Added Windows *
Fatal: First sector of /dev/hdd1 doesn't have a valid boot signature

This is better than before, as it didnt' add any of the other choices I had in there.

my current lilo.conf

prompt
timeout=50
default=Windows
boot=/dev/hdb
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
message=/boot/message
lba32

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-8
label=linux
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.20-8.img
read-only
append="hdc=ide-scsi root=LABEL=/"

image=/mnt/mandy/boot/vmlinuz
label=mandy
root=/dev/hdd1
initrd=/mnt/mandy/boot/initrd.img
append="devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off quiet"
vga=788
read-only

image=/mnt/mandy/boot/2.4.21-0.25mdkcustom
label=2421-25
root=/dev/hdd1
initrd=/mnt/mandy/boot/initrd-2.4.21-0.25mdkcustom.img
append="devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off quiet"
vga=788
read-only

other=/dev/hdb1
optional
label=Windows

other=/dev/hdd1
optional
label=hdd1

[ralpha6]

With help from BobGuy, I managed to fix lilo.conf file by booting with my Mandrake CD1 and pressing F1 to get to rescue mode and reinstalled lilo from there.

Then after booting to Mandrake I edited the lilo.conf file to add the stanza for Redhat and ran lilo and all is good. Thanks Bob and Grogan!

[Grogan]

Hmm, well you just needed to get your paths right in the lilo.conf file. It's no different than what you did last time. It would have worked from within redhat just the same.

Since your mandrake installation didn't have a boot partition, then you would have had to use /mnt/mandy/boot/kernelname-whatever