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Re: Lilo boot problem.



Hi

Oded Arbel wrote:
> 
> will someone remind me why sometimes Lilo hangs while booting , and I get
> the following output instead of - "lilo:"   :
> l 04 04 04 04 04 04 ... and continues like that until I reboot.

from /usr/doc/lilo/Manual.txt.gz (in Debian, at least, I guess everywhere):
<quote>
   L <error> ...   The first stage boot loader has been loaded and started, 
    but it can't load the second stage boot loader. The two-digit error 
    codes indicate the type of problem. (See also section "Disk error 
    codes".) This condition usually indicates a media failure or a geometry 
    mismatch (e.g. bad disk parameters, see section "Disk geometry"). 
...
   0x04   "Sector not found". This typically indicates a geometry mismatch. 
    If you're booting a raw-written disk image, verify whether it was 
    created for disks with the same geometry as the one you're using. If 
    you're booting from a SCSI disk or a large IDE disk, you should check, 
    whether LILO has obtained correct geometry data from the kernel or 
    whether the geometry definition corresponds to the real disk geometry. 
    (See section "Disk geometry".) Removing COMPACT may help too. So may 
    adding LINEAR. 
<End of quote>
In short, I would try both adding LINEAR and removing COMPACT
(you do this with you favourite text editor, to /etc/lilo.conf,
and after saving, simply run lilo).

BTW, if it is only SOMETIMES (as you write), it might be a hardware
problem - probably the controller (if you have one) or the cables,
or something. I have a 486 with a VLB controller, and when somebody
pushes the printer connector too strongly (from the back), I get
IDE errors ...

> 
> I'm using RH5.1 on a P75. lilo is installed on /dev/hda which is 420MB
> (WDC AC2420) and linux is booting from /dev/hdb which is 1.6GB (WDC
> AC31600). (/dev/hda1 is ext2 too, the reason for this strange setup is
> anachronizem).
> 
> Oded
> 
> 

Hope this helps,

	didi