Installing Linux for the first time (& dual boot)

go to console

then make a mount point for your linux partition, like this:-

mkdir /mnt/sysimage

now mount the partition into there

mount /dev/hda7 /mnt/sysimage

where hda7 is your linux partition (should remember from setup)

now chroot it,

chroot /mnt/sysimage

now, open lilo.conf in a text editor

pico /etc/lilo.conf

now edit it as I described above, save.

reinstall with this command:

/sbin/lilo

reboot, see if it works
 
Mictlantecuhtli,

I can't find an option for that.

Phantasm,

I went to do the mount command, but it said "can't find /dev/hdd1/mnt/sysimage in /etc/fstab or etc/mtab. HDD1 is the linux partition.

I'm getting quite frustrated with this now.
 
there is a space between the "/dev/hdd1" bit and the "/mnt/sysimage" bit

try not to panic. its actually A LOT less complex than it looks. Try to imagine the first time you were presented with Windows and drive letters and stuff and everything was new and strange. Relax. Also, try to read some short book on common UNIX commands.
 
OK, read the instructions a little closer, all fine until the pico part, it says the command pico is not recognized.
 
try opening it in the vi editor. read the man page of vi beforehand, by using this command

man vi

so that you know how to save files. then you would edit the file with

vi /etc/lilo.conf

i don't use vi (probably should more) so I can't tell you how to work it but its very likely that that is installed.
 
Tried it, saved and no joy. Kept getting L 99 99 across the screen continuously. I'll try and reinstall Linux, should I use the native Linux file format? Also, at the end do I select for Linux to become the first on the MBR or just the first sector, none or floppy? Also, should I try repairing the boot.ini? Perhaps regenerate the MBR using the XP CD?
 
On a separate note I believe I reinstalled it on the first sector and not MBR before trying your tip, it's too late to reinstall now, but I'll try it tomorrow, let me know what you think.
 
If you want to use lilo to boot your machine then yes, you would want it in the MBR. Try creating the floppy as well, because that would get you to a command prompt with your system installed and we would be able to try some stuff if you have messed up the boot loader process. If this is the stage you get to, post here (giving a dump of your /etc/lilo.conf) and we shall take a look.

So many probs with lilo.... hmm... maybe we should switch to grub, however you could also try the "linear" parameter, instead of "lba", remember to reinstall lilo with /sbin/lilo after any changes.

Keep reinstalling if that makes it easier - a lot of us reinstalled lots of times before getting more confident and practicing, and getting everything right. Don't give up - its not as hard as perhaps it seems. Install lilo into the MBR and it should boot - if there is an option in that stage of the install to do some other, advanced options then maybe they would do the lba32, etc for you so think about trying that. Make a boot disk when offered (i.e. floppy option.)
 
Phantasm,

I reinstalled last night, this morning I get Lilo coming up, select Linux, Windows etc. Windows works, but the default Linux gives me a 0X01 error and then a command prompt (boot:) I'll try the failsafe mode.
 
Hmm, on a reboot that screen disappeared, seems only to work right after an install. Grub sounds interesting I must say. I'll try a reinstall with the floppy as boot, and I did do the lba32 fix, it comes right after the vga=normal or vga=788 line? I'll see if I can post a dump, may take a while to type.
 
Another thing, the drives are on separate IDE cables after I was having them conflict with each other.
 
Would it be possible for you to try to install a completely different version of linux? Like redhat or suse or something? The process is very similar.
 
Well, perhaps. The problem is that I'm close to my bandwidth limit, and my backup PC has no burner, so unless I can get into XP on my new one, I can't.
 
Hmm, get a Grub Loading Stage2Read error when trying to boot off the floppy. Should I try resetting the MBR through the XP recovery disk?
 
Do you actually have LBA enabled in your BIOS? If not, you may encounter a problem that I first encountered with Linux, almost 4 and a half years ago!

A lot of these booting technologies you are dabbling with do - as far as I am aware - rely on lba being enabled in the BIOS. The various boot failures you are experiencing may perhaps be a cause of this.

Unfortunately, how you will get past this is to backup all important data on the drive, delete the existing partition, change to LBA mode in the BIOS and then repartition and build all of your operating systems back up again.

This is a fairly drastic move, and one that you must plan and execute properly - if indeed it does fix the problems you are having, which it may.

I really do think that ;-

Originally posted by Mictlantecuhtli
NV30: Is that hdd set to use LBA in BIOS?
Click to expand...

it on to something. check in your BIOS and tell us please.
 
Phantasm,

Where can I find that in the Intel D845HV mobo? I really don't want to tear down my OS, I wiped out my backup on the backup drive while formatting it for Linux. :-/
 
I don't know your BIOS in such detail! ;)

Look in your motherboard manual, its a setting. Anything to do with IDE controllers or hard disk geometry, heads sectors cylinders, etc is the area you are looking for. Could even be in standard setting, first menu in the BIOS.

As far as not having to reinstall your OS, if you have more than one hard drive and a program like Drive Image you could perhaps save everything. Newer versions of Drive image support writing to CD. Who knows, perhaps if you PMed me, you might suddenly find... something.... WINK WINK! ;) But keep any discussion of your solving of the problem to the forums, I think you can sort this.

Also, can you get another version of linux? if you have broadband, you can download many many different distributions of linux for free. Red Hat 9 is great in my opinion.
 
OK, I'll take a look. But unfortunately as I said I'm close to my bandwidth limit and can't download another gig or so of files.
 
I'm really getting frustrated with this, I can't boot into any OS. I've reinstalled Linux about 5 times already with no luck. Should I go ahead and get the XP recovery CD to write a new MBR?
 
3.3.2 PCI IDE Support
If you select Auto in the BIOS Setup program, the BIOS automatically sets up the two
PCI IDE connectors with independent I/O channel support. The IDE interface supports hard drives
up to ATA-66/100 and recognizes any ATAPI compliant devices, including CD-ROM drives, tape
drives, and Ultra DMA drives (see Section 1.4 for the supported version of ATAPI). The BIOS
determines the capabilities of each drive and configures them to optimize capacity and
performance. To take advantage of the high capacities typically available today, hard drives are
automatically configured for Logical Block Addressing (LBA) and to PIO Mode 3 or 4, depending
on the capability of the drive. You can override the auto-configuration options by specifying
manual configuration in the BIOS Setup program.
To use ATA-66/100 features the following items are required:
· An ATA-66/100 peripheral device
· An ATA-66/100 compatible cable
· ATA-66/100 operating system device drivers

Not sure where to set this up, I can't find any options to do so.
 
If you are being denied access to your machine, yeah. you can just make a boot disk for linux and see if it works?? then get XP back up and running, boot from the CD, use recovery console and then choose fixboot and fixmbr
 
Boot disk? I let the installer copy the bootloader to a floppy, and got that load error from it. By XP back up and running I take it you mean booting off the CD and running fixboot and fixmbr, or something else?
 
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