Guest CoasterBGW Posted March 15, 2003 Report Share Posted March 15, 2003 Install Mandrake okay but when I go to boot up I get this error: Lilo - key table read/checksum error It stops right there and I can't do anything, not even boot to Windows 98. So I go into rescue on the mandrake CD and re-stall the old boot loader that came with 98. It works fine but I can't book to linux then. So I went back to rescue and install lilo again, booted back up and the same error. Anyone got any suggestions on how to fix this matter? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted March 15, 2003 Report Share Posted March 15, 2003 What kind of hard drive do you have, what how do you have the partitions set up? This may help someone in finding the answer to your problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest CoasterBGW Posted March 15, 2003 Report Share Posted March 15, 2003 One hard drive is a Western Digital 6 gig drive... The only thing on that one is my windows 98. Second hard drive is also a Western Digital 90gig hard drive that is partitioned with 20 gigs of windows and the rest is linux. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted March 15, 2003 Report Share Posted March 15, 2003 You might be running into the 1024 sector issue. Where in, anything after the 1024 sector on a hard drive probably won't be bootable. Also, Western Digital drives have been known to have issues with Linux. WD officially does not support Linux on their hard drives. I would try this: Get a backup of whatever is on that 20 gig partition on the second HD, and then reconfigure the partition setup. Make a short (10mb or so) /boot partition at the beginning of that drive, then the 20gig windows partition, then the rest of your Linux partitions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannonfodder Posted March 16, 2003 Report Share Posted March 16, 2003 I might be wrong but I don't think the 1024 cylinder issue is revelant to current Mandrake distros anymore (or rather recent linux kernels). I have several versions of mandrake installed at the beginning and near the end of my drive. Some ideas.. Reinstall Lilo. - Boot off of CD1 - Hit F1, and type rescue - A menu should appear. Look for Reinstall Bootloader (I think) - Do so and see if it helps. Reinstall Mandrake using extended partitions - Boot off CD1 - Install - Expert Install (not sure what version you are using. You want to use the custom partition screen) - Delete your old mandrake partitions - recreate mandrake partitions in the extended partition. You may need to click Advance or More to get that option. For each partition, click on Preference and select extended. Should be able to put them all in extended. Otherwise, post a detailed map of your disk/partitions and the contents of your /etc/fstab file and /etc/lilo.conf file.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest joehill Posted March 16, 2003 Report Share Posted March 16, 2003 You might be running into the 1024 sector issue. Where in, anything after the 1024 sector on a hard drive probably won't be bootable. Also, Western Digital drives have been known to have issues with Linux. WD officially does not support Linux on their hard drives. I would try this: Get a backup of whatever is on that 20 gig partition on the second HD, and then reconfigure the partition setup. Make a short (10mb or so) /boot partition at the beginning of that drive, then the 20gig windows partition, then the rest of your Linux partitions. I can verify this, not that you need it. But ya, WD has officially been crossed off my list due to recent troubles I have had with them in Linux and Windows. Not to say "give up", just to confirm tyme is not talking out of his ass. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted March 16, 2003 Report Share Posted March 16, 2003 Not to say "give up", just to confirm tyme is not talking out of his ass. which I do have a tendency to do from time to time :-) I wasn't sure about the 1024 cylinder thing. Just figured better safe than sorry. Since you've already tried re-installing the bootloader, give cannonfodders second suggestion a try. Also, leave a little room between the Windows partition and the Linux partitions. This helped fix and issue I had w/XP and Mandrake a while back-seems XP was over running the boundaries it had marked on the hard drive-or something. I really don't remember, I just know Windows does some odd things when it comes to partitioning the hard drive. I've started using Partition Magic to create all partitions before I start an install, seems to work better that way-usually. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannonfodder Posted March 16, 2003 Report Share Posted March 16, 2003 I have a WD 40 gig that has worked flawlessly. I remember reading about a lot of the older model WD having problems too :) Here's my HD setup for reference hda1 (win2k/vfat) hda5 (vfat) hha6 (vfat) hdc1 (extended) -- hdc5 (vfat) -- hdc6 (vfat) -- hdc7 (mdk 9.0 /) -- hdc8 (mdk 9.0 /usr) -- hdc9 (mdk 9.0 /home) -- hdc10 (mdk 9.1 / ) -- hdc11 (mdk 9.1 /usr) -- hdc12 (mdk 9.1 /home) hdc2 (swap) You can see how I take advantage of the extended partition. Another note is NEVER NEVER use a windows utility to manage your partition tables. Always use the mandrake diskdrake or some other linux utility.. Good way to turn your partition table into spagetti! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobGuy© Posted March 16, 2003 Report Share Posted March 16, 2003 Make a short (10mb or so) /boot partition at the beginning of that drive, Maybe that will work on your setup, but it will not on mine. :) Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/hda5 reiserfs 95M 38M 57M 40% /boot Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest CoasterBGW Posted March 16, 2003 Report Share Posted March 16, 2003 Tymes method worked perfectly thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ndeb Posted March 16, 2003 Report Share Posted March 16, 2003 You might be running into the 1024 sector issue. Where in, anything after the 1024 sector on a hard drive probably won't be bootable. Also, Western Digital drives have been known to have issues with Linux. WD officially does not support Linux on their hard drives.No hard-drive manufacturer actually "supports" linux or any other OS in the sense that thay do not supply drivers for any OS. Its just a question of implementing the standard IDE/SCSI interface. Also, WD drives may have reliability issues but that is a manufacturing issue, not a design issue. I have 2 WD drives on my system working ok. Tymes method worked perfectly thanks!It should if the cause is the 1024 cylinder limit for the boot sector. But there is a simpler solution using the lba32 option in /etc/lilo.conf . Check this out: http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue65/tag/4.html . Note that, "lba32" requires that your BIOS support "LBA" (logical block addressing), which should be enabled in the BIOS setup. Most modern BIOSes supports that though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.