This is my original post <cas> cas> I've a kernel on the /dev/sda2 partition in the /boot directory, cas> and it's called vmlinuz. My boot partition doesn't seem to be set cas> correctly, because it's not booting /dev/sda2 as root. Instead, it cas> displays "Loading Linux ....", then "boot: " and then cas> "Loading Linux ...." again in an endless loop.
Bruce replies: b> Can you make it boot using a floppy disk kernel? You should be able to b> boot the installation root disk with the command b> "linux root=XXX", and have it come up on your hard disk root (I'm b> assuming you have a hard disk root already installed). Send me your b> lilo.conf . I used the debian boot and root disks (root is now a ram drive) and I've mounted my original root drive on /target. From there, I've tried to re-lilo. Here's the scoop: # mount /dev/ramdisk0 on / type minix (rw) proc on /proc type proc (rw) /dev/sda2 on /target type ext2 (rw) # df Filesystem 1024 blocks Used Available Capacity Mounted on /dev/ramdisk0 1404 1237 167 88% / /dev/sda2 1436388 392333 969834 29% /target # fdisk (then "p") Device Boot Begin Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 1 1 251 513891 6 DOS 16-bit >=32M /dev/sda2 252 252 976 1484437+ 83 Linux native /dev/sda3 977 977 1003 55282+ 82 Linux swap salwen replies: s> Is it possible that you have a disk that is bigger than your bios rom s> knows how to handle? Or that you changed the kernel but didn't run s> lilo again? Yes, to both. The disk is large and I may not have run lilo _properly_ when I updated the kernel image stored as /boot/vmlinuz. I ran lilo. The drive is a SLED (Single Large Expensive Disk). What if I had drives in a RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks)? How can I tell if the BIOS is going to handle it? I think I have a rom on the controller that supports the large drives and supports hardware RAID (And Linux supports software RAID in the new kernel!) Here's the messed up lilo.conf on what now is /target/etc/lilo.conf: boot=/dev/sda2 root=/dev/sda2 install=/target/boot/boot.b vga=normal delay=20 image=/target/boot/vmlinuz label=Linux I can't even begin to speculate on what this is all doing. I know the kernel supports the hardware. After the install of 2.0.0, I compiled 2.0.10, installed it, ran lilo, booted. Then I compiled 2.0.13, installed it, ran lilo, and didn't boot. I tried running lilo again, after booting from the install floppys, then I edited lilo.conf as seen above and tried again. Is there any hope? Charles PS. Sorry if I've sent duplicate copies when replying to the people who've replied to my first post. Thank you for your encouragement.
