Pierre Posted November 4, 2003 Report Share Posted November 4, 2003 When I first installed my MDK 9.1 I put LILO on my root partition. Now I want to move it to MBR. Can I do that without reinstallation or upgrade? If so how? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted November 4, 2003 Report Share Posted November 4, 2003 Copy lilo.conf as lilo.confback and put it somewhere accessable. Use the first install cd to remove lilo, and then reinstall it on to the mbr. Then copy lilo.confback to lilo.conf. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmpatrick Posted November 4, 2003 Report Share Posted November 4, 2003 (edited) I think he'll have to edit that lilo.conf before copying it back. The beginning line of lilo.conf: boot=/dev/hdx may be wrong. If he installed lilo to his root partition, x=the the root partition. After moving it to the mbr he would have to edit it for the device file for the drive the mbr is on, usually hda on most systems. In fact, now that I think of it that may be all he has to do. Edit the above line to reflect the drive the mbr is on and run: # lilo -v to write lilo to the mbr. If I'm wrong, please explain. Just to clarify in my mind, Pierre please post your lilo.conf and state what drive your mbr is on. Edited November 4, 2003 by pmpatrick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre Posted November 4, 2003 Author Report Share Posted November 4, 2003 Here is my present lilo.conf boot=/dev/hda5 map=/boot/map default="linux" keytable=/boot/us.klt prompt nowarn timeout=100 message=/boot/message menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw image=/boot/vmlinuz label="linux" root=/dev/hda5 initrd=/boot/initrd.img append="devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off quiet" vga=788 read-only image=/boot/vmlinuz label="linux-nonfb" root=/dev/hda5 initrd=/boot/initrd.img append="devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off" read-only image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.21-0.13mdk label="old_linux" root=/dev/hda5 initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.21-0.13mdk.img append="quiet devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off" vga=788 read-only image=/boot/vmlinuz label="failsafe" root=/dev/hda5 initrd=/boot/initrd.img append="devfs=nomount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off failsafe" read-only other=/dev/hda1 label="windows" table=/dev/hda hda1 is FAT32 on cyl 0-257 hda5 is Linux root on cyl 258 -821 MBR presently contain bootmanager MasterBooter for dual boot to Linux and DOS respectively. This is what I want to overwrite. Should I just change the first line in lilo.conf to boot=/dev/hda and run #lilo -v is that all? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted November 4, 2003 Report Share Posted November 4, 2003 Yep Other than update your /etc/fstab I have to admit I was sceptical too. I kept thinking it couldn't be that simple!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted November 4, 2003 Report Share Posted November 4, 2003 You guys are correct about the edit and the fact that the xtra lilo file won't mess with anything. I just don't like stray files!! B) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmpatrick Posted November 4, 2003 Report Share Posted November 4, 2003 (edited) Should I just change the first line in lilo.conf to boot=/dev/hda and run #lilo -v is that all? That should probably do it, but mine's a little different: boot=/dev/hdemap=/boot/map vga=0x0122 default="win4lin" keytable=/boot/us.klt prompt nowarn timeout=100 message=/boot/message menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw disk=/dev/hde bios=0x80 My mbr is on hde due to my unusual ide configuration and my default is obviously different. I've only quoted the beginning part which is all that's relevant. Let me experiment a bit and I'll post back. I'll try commenting out the vga line and the last line and see what happens. Edit: OK. I ran my experiment. Commenting out the last bios line had no effect so I don't believe it's absolutely necessary. It seems to be identifying where the bios info is loaded and may be necessary if you have acpi enabled but I don't and neither do you. That's just my best guess. When I commented out the vga line, lilo still worked fine which kind of puzzled me since this line sets the graphics mode for lilo during boot. Apparently it defaults to the proper mode for rendering the graphics on the lilo boot selection screen if nothing is set there. In short, I don't think either one is necessary but if you want to include these lines it shouldn't hurt(for the bios line change hde to hda). I'd just do the simple edit of "boot=/dev/hda" and run lilo -v. Edited November 4, 2003 by pmpatrick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre Posted November 5, 2003 Author Report Share Posted November 5, 2003 pmpatrick wrote: I'd just do the simple edit of "boot=/dev/hda" and run lilo -v. It worked fine so now I got LILO in MBR. Thanks all for your help! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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