Windows kills LiLo [solved]

[fuego]

Hello esteemed Mandriva users.

 

I have a boot issue with my XP/Mandriva2006 setup.

 

The drive is a 30Gb with partitions as follows:

1) 60Mb boot Fat32 - contains MBR

2)10Gb WinXp NTFS

3)9Gb DataStash Fat32

4)10Gb Linux Mandriva 2006

5)600Mb Linux swap

 

I first installed XP, ran fine. Then I installed Mandriva, awsome I love it.

I reboot and am presented with the LiLo menu. I chose Linux. It boots, yay no prob.

I reboot. I get Lilo menu. I choose win. It boots, Yay no problems. I reboot; it goes straight back to windows, no sign on lilo anymore.

 

I assigned Lilo to the root linux partition on install after trying it in the first partition, still no joy.

I tried adding a line to the boot.ini too but I don't know what file or location to point to to boot linux.

 

I am very new to linux. 3 weeks maybe.

Please can anyone enlighten me on this issue?

 

Thanks

~fuego~

Edited March 5, 2006 by fuego

[tyme]

you should tell lilo to install on the master boot record (or something to that affect), it should be /dev/hda (notice: no number after that a!)

[AussieJohn]

So you can see what is happening and try to get away from the CLI or command line interface so early on in your experience, try the following.

 

Put in your No1 Mandriva disk and reboot, then do a "pretend" upgrade and follow through to the last summary of settings. In the part regarding the boot up, select grub if it is there as a choice as bootloader and select for it to be installed on the MBR (Master Boot Record) . If grub is not listed it means it was not installed so select lilo and again install it as bootloader on the MBR. You can also recheck other system settings as well then reboot.

 

All of this only takes a few minutes and is not as confusing as trying to use the CLI.

Cheers. John.

[scarecrow]

That "60MB FAT32 boot partition" is a bad idea. Who told you to do so?

Which partitions are primary?

A reasonable solution would be formatting your 60M FAT32 partition as ext2, and mounting it within Mandrake as /boot (it will move all files contained in /boot in there after you do that on mcc/harddrake). After that, if using LILO, you do have to rerun mcc/boot and reconfigure the boot loader. Simply pick writing it to the HD mbr ( /dev/hda, or /dev/sda if you use a SATA harddisk).

Edited March 2, 2006 by scarecrow

[fuego]

Hey thanks for the input guys!

 

I have unfortunately tried to put lilo on the first partition. When I do this I can select either operating system but if I select windows and go into windows and then reboot I will no longer get my lilo but just windows boots up.

 

Any ideas how to stop this?

[ianw1974]

Don't put lilo in your first partition, put it in the MBR, this is why it's screwed up.

[Ixthusdan]

From your description, windows is conducting a "repair" when it runs. Are you running a utility by windows or a third party vendor that "repairs" the drive when running automatically, like an antivirus program? Something is "repairing" the mbr. There are utilities that can be set to do that. Turn it off of automatic and give it a new mbr as a restore point.

[fuego]

Thanks Everyone !

 

I have sorted it out.

 

Now I can choose either operating system to load and it's all good.

 

Here's how I did it.

 

I left the partitions in the same order as described upstairs.

Then I reinstalled lilo to my linux partition.

Then I had to go into linux and open a console and make a 512 byte file of the boot to copy to my first patition.

 

this was using the dd comand to create a file called bootsect.lnx

this file was then copied to the first partition and the boot.ini edited to add the following line:

c:/bootsect.lnx

this will allow you to boot to lilo or grub from windows which in turn will allow you to switch back to the windows boot loader.

 

so both boot loaders can now be accessed and both OS's can also be loaded.

Thanks again for the input.

Mandriva rocks!