LILO displays error messages when it can’t function properly. These error messages should be sufficient to identify the problem. The most common error messages and their solutions are shown in Table 4.1.
Table 4.1 Common LILO error messages.
Message Solution
Can’t put the boot sector on logical partition X LILO attempted to put the boot sector on the […]

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To prevent LILO from booting the system, you must disable the boot sector (by using fdisk to change the active partition) or remove it completely. Most versions of LILO can be quickly disabled with the command
/etc/lilo/lilo -u
If you are using the newer directory structure, substitute the pathname as necessary. Some later versions of LILO use […]

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LILO is usually able to obtain information about the hard disks and floppy disks on the system by reading the kernel. On some systems(especially some SCSI adapters and adapters that do not behave as IDE or SCSI normal devices), though, this isn’t possible. When LILO can’t obtain the disk parameter information, it generates an error […]

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LILO can boot a kernel image from several locations, such as a regular file on the root filesystem or any other mounted filesystem, a block device such as a floppy disk, or the boot sector of another partition or disk. The type of boot is dictated by entries in a configuration file. Boot image configuration […]

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You can store configuration options for the map installer in the file /etc/lilo/config or /etc/lilo.conf (depending on the version of Linux). The file consists of sets of parameter-value pairs, although some options do not need a value. You can use whitespace between the parameter and the equal sign and between the equal sign and the […]

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The LILO map installer utility accepts a number of options on the command line. Many of the command-line options are mirrored by configuration variables, discussed in the next section. The following list describes the command-line options:
* The -b dev option uses dev as the boot device. If no value is specified, […]

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The map installer is the program that updates the boot sector and creates the map file. The map installer is usually the file /etc/lilo/lilo. Whenever the map installer is running, it checks for errors in the boot sector. If an error is detected, no changes to the boot sector are written, and the installer terminates.
When […]

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Regardless of which boot process you use, LILO pauses momentarily when Linux is booting to check that the Shift, Ctrl, and Alt keys are not pressed and that Caps Lock and Scroll Lock are set. If none of the keys are pressed and the locks are on, LILO displays the boot prompt. At this point, […]

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Most recent versions of Linux, including the one supplied on this book’s CD-ROM, let you manage LILO through a menu-driven routine usually started through setup. Typically, when you have made any changes to the installation (such as adding new software), the last component of the setup program asks you whether you want to work with […]

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A slight modification of the last boot process is replacing the normal MBR with a utility called BOOTACTV, which prompts for the partition to boot from. This utility requires that a non-DOS-compatible copy of the boot sector be written, so you should use it only when Linux will be the dominant operating system and LILO […]

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