Some systems may have difficulty with hard disks that do not allow the disk parameters (heads, sectors per track, and cylinders) to be read. If you get error messages about bad geometry or the LILO installation fails with disk errors, the disk parameters are a likely source of trouble, especially if you’re dealing with SCSI disks and hard disks with a capacity of 1G or more.

In this case, you must manually enter the disk parameters into the file disktab. The section “Disk Parameter Table” later in this chapter discusses this step in more detail. Edit the disktab file as explained to include the disk parameters. Then test the new LILO configuration by copying it to a floppy disk and booting from it. Follow these steps:

1. Change to the LILO directory (usually /etc/lilo).
2. Execute the following command to copy the LILO configuration to the floppy. Substitute the kernel image name after the image parameter.
   echo image=kernel_name | ./lilo -C - -b /dev/fd0 -v -v -v
3. Reboot your system from the floppy disk.

If the configuration is correct, LILO will read the floppy disk for the boot loader, and then load the kernel from the hard disk. If everything boots properly and you can move around the filesystem, the disk parameters are correct. If you can’t access the hard disk filesystem, the parameters are incorrect and should be entered again.