Re: Trying to boot Linux from my second Hard Disk.

From: Eric Moors (scare.crow_at_oz.land)
Date: 10/15/03 

Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 15:57:23 +0200

> But as far as I can see, you are trying to boot from the master disk on
> the second controller (hdc). I didn't think that was possible, unless
> you specify it in the BIOS.

it depends on the BIOS whether or not it is possible.
In his case he appearantly can select in the BIOS to boot from hdc, so
that means it is possible.
 
> Also you have put LILO at the beginning of the first partition on this
> disk, rather than in the MBR. For that to work at all, I think you would
> have to make the partition active, so that the BIOS looks there for the
> boot loader. Maybe LILO does that?

I believe he is chain-loading from another bootloader.
I asked that before, but he has not yet answered that, so I am not
100% sure.

BTW: it is not the BIOS that searches for an active partition. The
behaviour you are describing is that of the default DOS bootloader

> The standard arrangement is to install LILO (or grub) in the MBR of the
> first master disk (hda), ie boot=/dev/hda , since that is where the BIOS
> will look first.

Yep. (although you may be able to change the search order, depends on
your BIOS)

> Finally, you said you had the LILO from RH-9.0, which you thought would
> be the most recent. I've read of several new versions of LILO since
> RH-9.0 came out, so I don't think your assumption would be true.

It definitely is not true. Last lilo is 22.5.8 AFAIK.
It is the easiest solution to use that version as it doesn't require him
to use the disk=, bios= parameters in his lilo.conf. Older lilo's should
work after configuring these parameters correctly.

Eric

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