Re: RedHat Woes

["Thomas O'Dowd" <tom@example.com>]

Regarding lilo, and its mysterious LI, have a look in the lilo readme
which should be under your docs directory, on my RH, it is 
/usr/doc/lilo-0.21/README. I had this problem once, but no problems
booting off my rescue to fix it. It does sound like your partition
table got mangled or something though :(

Basically when you make a new kernel, copy it into /boot with a new
name. Don't overwrite the old kernel and then make a new non default
entry in lilo.conf for it. Then run lilo command. I also make sure
that /boot is on a separate partition and is small so it I don't have
to worry about limits. I usually assign ~20MB to it, but it can
be smaller :)

The section you want from the README is...

LILO start message
- - - - - - - - -

When LILO loads itself, it displays the word "LILO". Each letter is printed
before or after performing some specific action. If LILO fails at some
point, the letters printed so far can be used to identify the problem. This
is described in more detail in the technical overview.

Note that some hex digits may be inserted after the first "L" if a
transient disk problem occurs. Unless LILO stops at that point, generating
an endless stream of error codes, such hex digits do not indicate a severe
problem.

  (<nothing>)  No part of LILO has been loaded. LILO either isn't installed
    or the partition on which its boot sector is located isn't active.
   L <error> ...   The first stage boot loader has been loaded and started,
    but it can't load the second stage boot loader. The two-digit error
    codes indicate the type of problem. (See also section "Disk error
    codes".) This condition usually indicates a media failure or a geometry
    mismatch (e.g. bad disk parameters, see section "Disk geometry").
   LI   The first stage boot loader was able to load the second stage boot
    loader, but has failed to execute it. This can either be caused by a
    geometry mismatch or by moving /boot/boot.b without running the map
    installer.
   LIL   The second stage boot loader has been started, but it can't load
    the descriptor table from the map file. This is typically caused by a
    media failure or by a geometry mismatch.
   LIL?   The second stage boot loader has been loaded at an incorrect
    address. This is typically caused by a subtle geometry mismatch or by
    moving /boot/boot.b without running the map installer.
   LIL-   The descriptor table is corrupt. This can either be caused by a
    geometry mismatch or by moving /boot/map without running the map
    installer.
   LILO   All parts of LILO have been successfully loaded.


Cheers,

Tom.
-- 
Thomas O'Dowd                   Have you had your noop today?
tom@example.com                  http://www.nooper.com

On Wed, Oct 11, 2000 at 03:49:10AM -0500, Kelly_Mismash@example.com wrote:
> I had the same problem with LILO on a laptop that I was using at the last
> company I worked for. There is something funky about lilo, but I never took
> the time to try to figure it out. I found that if I hit the "Esc" key when
> it displayed LI that I would get the whole LILO prompt and then I could
> choose which kernel/OS I wanted to boot up into. However, even if I did not
> hit the "Esc" key lilo would eventually boot up into the default kernel/OS
> that I had configure in the lilo conf file. If it simply just hangs on you
> and never boots then you obviously have a different and/or additional
> problems that I did not. Of course this does not explain your partition
> issue which I have no advice to offer.
> 
> 	kelly
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: shawn [mailto:shawn@example.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, October 11, 2000 1:57 PM
> To: tlug@example.com
> Subject: RedHat Woes
> 
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> I've run myself into a little problem and was hoping someone might have some
> advice.
> 
> It started when I recompiled the kernel to configure module support. I
> followed the kernel HOW-TO, and had no problems, including running bzlilo at
> the end.
> 
> When I rebooted however, the startup stalled at LI
> where there is usually LILO. I booted with a boot/rescue disk, and got
> kernel panic, same thing when I used TomsRootBoot, same thing when trying
> single user mode.
> 
> I made a "fresh" installation on the secondary hd (hdb) and was then able to
> boot. When attempting to mount the original drive partitions, though, I am
> only able to mount the original /boot and / partitions. the original /home
> contained only dmesg.txt. Attempts to mount other partitions result in:
> VFS: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock, or too many mounted
> filesystems.
> (I am using mount with the -t ext2 option for fs.)
> 
> Any ideas on how I can work through this mess?
> 
> Shawn
> 
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