I am trying to dual boot my PC with windows XP on my first hard drive and Mandrake 9.2 on the partition at the beginning of my second (primary IDE slave) hard drive (linux sees the root at hdb5).

The first time I installed linux, I did put the bootloader in the MBR and nothing would boot. I had to use the recovery disk to reload the windows bootloader. I did some research and found that I could put LILO/GRUB in the root directory and then tell the windows bootloader to load linux.

I have gone through the process of creating the bootsect.lnx file, copying it to c:\ and updating the boot.ini file. So now when I boot up, windows gives me the option of XP or Linux. The problem is that the Linux boot always fails. I've tried both GRUB and LILO, here is what I have seen:

GRUB - The word GRUB appears in the upper left hand corner of the screen and then everything hangs. I checked the menu.lst file and it seems to have valid settings.

LILO - I get the letter L followed by about half a screen of 07 07 07 ...
Here again I have checked the lilo.conf file and it looks good. I get this with both the graphical and text versions of LILO.

Here is my partition information

hda1 31 Mbytes type <0x6> (DOS FAT16)
hda2 21,728 Mbytes type <0x7> (NTFS)
hda3 16,386 Mbytes type <0x7> (NTFS)
hdb1 10,001 Mbytes type <0x7> (NTFS)
hdb2 10,001 Mbytes type <0x7> (NTFS)
hdb3 5,004 Mbytes type <0xc> (Win98 FAT32, LBA-mapped)
hdb5 5,992 Mbytes type <0x83> (Ext2)
hdb6 494 Mbytes type <0x82> (Linux Swap)
hdb7 6,667 Mbytes type <0x83> (Ext2)

and here is lilo.conf

boot=/dev/hdb5
map=/boot/map
install=menu
vga=normal
default="linux"
keytable=/boot/us.klt
prompt
nowarn
timeout=100
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
image=/boot/vmlinux
label="linux"
root=/dev/hdb5
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="devfs=mount hdd=ide-scsi acpi=ht splash=silent"
vga=788
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinux
label="linux-nonfb"
root=/dev/hdb5
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="devfs=mount hdd=ide-scsi acpi=ht"
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinux
label="failsafe"
root=/dev/hdb5
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="failsafe devfs=nomount hdd=ide-scsi acpi=ht"
read-only
other=/dev/hda2
label="windows"
table=/dev/hda
other=/dev/fd0
label="floppy"
unsafe

Does anyone have any idea why neither of the boot loaders will boot Linux? What is the 07 07 07 error message mean?

Thanks

nimonm

I multi-boot all of the time. I also have zp pro, as well as at least two other linux installations on any given day. I always put lilo at the default position, the mbr, and have never had any problem. I have noticed that most of the time issues arise when lilo is not allowed to default to the mbr.

Here is my current config:

Note that boot is /dev/hda, and that windex is also /dev/hda. There are no issues at all. NOte that the root for each linux is noted within the lilo config. While windex needs to be hda, linux can be anywhere, as long as lilo knows where to look.

I would also recommend using ext3fs or reiserfs.

nimonm did state that lilo was originally in the mbr, in case you missed that.

I wouldn't mess with chainloading, it's nothing but trouble, but then I wouldn't mess with lilo either ...I use grub.

I did notice

for your kernel. Did you really rename it or compile a new? The default is vmlinuz (z not x).

Also, in grub you can, and usually have to, 'map' and 'hide' when you have more than one physical hd (hda/hdb) but I d/k if lilo does, can, or should do that as well.

Oh, and yes, anything but ext2. I use reiserfs.