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LILO mini-HOWTO
Miroslav "Misko" Skoric, skoric at eunet dot yu
v3.26, 2005-10-09

LILO is the most used Linux Loader for the x86 flavor of Linux; I'll
call it Lilo rather than LILO here because I don't appreciate upper-
case. This file describes some typical Lilo installations. It's
intended as a supplement to the Lilo User's Guide. I think examples
are informative even if your setup isn't much like mine. I hope this
saves you trouble. Since Lilo's own documentation is very good, who's
interested in the details is referred to /usr/doc/lilo* (once upon a
time said gentlemen like Cameron Spitzer and Alessandro Rubini who
have made early versions of this document)

This version of Lilo mini-HOWTO is based on work of Cameron Spitzer
(cls@truffula.sj.ca.us) and Alessandro Rubini (rubini@linux.it). There
are also contributions from Tony Harris (tony@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu) and
Marc Tanguy (mtanguy@ens.uvsq.fr). Well, I have used materials from
the authors mentioned - without changes - and added some pointers
related to configuring LILO for using with Windows NT and Windows
2000. More detailed information about the activation of Windows
NT/2000 from LILO menu, you may find in wonderfull Linux+WindowsNT
<http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Linux+WinNT.html> mini-HOWTO.

1. Introduction

Although the documentation found in Lilo's sources (the one installed
in /usr/doc/lilo-version) is very comprehensive, most Linux users
experience some trouble in building their own /etc/lilo.conf file.
This document is meant to support them by giving the minimal
information and by showing five sample installations:

· The first example is the classical ``Linux and other''
installation.

· The next one shows how to install Lilo on a hard drive connected as
/dev/hdc that will boot as /dev/hda. This is usually needed when
you install a new Linux drive from your own running system. This
also tells how to boot from SCSI disks when your BIOS is modern
enough.

· The third example shows how to boot a Linux system whose root
partition can't be accessed by the BIOS.

· The next sample file is used to access huge disks, that neither the
BIOS nor DOS can access easily (this one is somehow outdated).

· The last example shows how to restore a damaged disk, if the damage
resulted from installing another operating system).

The last three examples are by Cameron, cls@truffula.sj.ca.us, who
wrote the original document. Alessandro rubini@linux.it doesn't run
anything but Linux, so he can't check nor update them by himself.
Needless to say, any feedback is welcome.

2. Background Information and Standard Installation

When Lilo boots the system, it uses BIOS calls to load the Linux
kernel off the disk (IDE drive, floppy or whatever). Therefore, the
kernel must live in some place that can be accessed by the bios.
At boot time, Lilo is not able to read filesystem data, and any
pathname you put in /etc/lilo.conf is resolved at installation time
(when you invoke /sbin/lilo). Installation time is when the program
builds the tables that list which sectors are used by the files used
to load the operating system. As a consequence, all of these files
must live in a partition that can be accessed by the BIOS (the files
are usually located in the /boot directory, this means that only the
root partition of your Linux system needs to be accessed via the
BIOS).

Another consequence of being BIOS-based is that you must reinstall the
loader (i.e., you must reinvoke /sbin/lilo) any time you modify the
Lilo setup. Whenever you recompile your kernel and overwrite your old
image you must reinstall Lilo.

2.1. Where Should I Install Lilo?

The boot= directive in /etc/lilo.conf tells Lilo where it should place
its primary boot loader. In general, you can either specify the master
boot record (/dev/hda) or the root partition of your Linux
installation (is usually is /dev/hda1 or /dev/hda2).

If you have another operating system installed in your hard drive,
you'd better install Lilo to the root partition instead of the MBR. In
this case, you must mark the partition as ``bootable'' using the ``a''
command of fdisk or the ``b'' command of cfdisk. If you don't
overwrite the master boot sector you'll find it easier to uninstall
Linux and Lilo if needed.

Of course, you always have a way to avoid some "rules" like above.
Well, you may install Lilo to the MBR even if you already have another
operating system installed there. For example, if you installed
Windows NT 4.0 as the first operating system on your machine, then
NT's boot loader was placed into the MBR so you were able to boot NT
without problems. After you installed Linux and chose to install Lilo
to the MBR, Lilo rewrote NT's boot loader. Next time you boot your
machine, you won't be able to boot NT. But, that is no problem. You
should edit your /etc/lilo.conf and add a new entry for NT. Next time
you re-boot your system, there will be the new added NT entry under
Lilo menu. The same thing happened when I installed Windows 2000
instead of Windows NT.

2.2. How Should I Configure my IDE Hard Drives?

I personally don't use LBA or LARGE settings in the BIOS (but I only
run Linux); they are horrible kludges forced on by design deficiencies
in the PC world. This requires that the kernel lives in the first 1024
cylinders, but this is not a problem as long as you partition your
hard drives and keep root small (as you should do anyways).

If your hard disk already carries another operating system, you won't
be able to modify the BIOS settings, or the old system won't work any
more. All recent Lilo distribution are able to deal with LBA and LARGE
disk settings.

Note that the "linear" keyword in /etc/lilo.conf can help in dealing
with geometry problems. The keyword instructs Lilo to use linear
sector addresses instead of sector/head/cylinder tuples. Conversion
to 3D addresses is delayed to run-time, therefore making the setup
more immune to geometry problems.

If you have more than one hard disk and some of them are only used by
Linux and are not involved in the boot process, you can tell your BIOS
that they are not installed. Your system will boot more quickly and
Linux will autodetect all the disks in no time. I often switch disks
in my computers, but I never touch the BIOS configuration.

2.3. How Can I Interact at Boot Time?

When you see the Lilo prompt, you can hit the <Tab> key to show the
list of possible choices. If Lilo is not configured to be interactive,
press and hold the <Alt> or <Shift> key before the ``LILO'' message
appears.

If you choose to boot a Linux kernel, you can add command-line
arguments after the name of the system you choose. The kernel accepts
many command-line arguments. All the arguments are listed in the
``BootPrompt-HOWTO'' by Paul Gortmaker, and I won't replicate it here.
A few command line arguments, however, are particularly important and
worth describing here:

· root=: you can tell the Linux kernel to mount as root a different
partition than the one appearing in /lilo.conf. For example, my
system has a tiny partition hosting a minimal Linux installation,
and I've been able to boot the system after destroying my root
partition by mistake.

· init=: version 1.3.43 and newer of the Linux kernel can execute
another command instead of /sbin/init, as specified on the command
line. If you experience bad problems during the boot process, you
can access the bare system by specifying init=/bin/sh (when you are
at the shell prompt you most likely will need to mount your disks:
try ``mount -w -n -o remount /; mount -a'', and remember to
``umount -a'' before turning off the computer).

· A number: by specifying a number on the kernel command line, you
instruct init to enter a specific run-level (the default is usually
3 or 2, according to the distribution you chose). Refer to the
init documentation, to /etc/inittab and to /etc/rc*.d to probe
further.

2.4. How Can I Uninstall Lilo?

When Lilo overwrites a boot sector, it saves a backup copy in
/boot/boot.xxyy, where xxyy are the major and minor numbers of the
device, in hex. You can see the major and minor numbers of your disk
or partition by running ``ls -l /dev//device''. For example, the first
sector of /dev/hda (major 3, minor 0) will be saved in
/boot/boot.0300, installing Lilo on /dev/fd0 creates /boot/boot.0200
and installing on /dev/sdb3 (major 8, minor 19) creates
/boot/boot.0813. Note that Lilo won't create the file if there is
already one so you don't need to care about the backup copy whenever
you reinstall Lilo (for example, after recompiling your kernel). The
backup copies found in /boot/ are always the snapshot of the situation
before installing any Lilo.

If you ever need to uninstall Lilo (for example, in the unfortunate
case you need to uninstall Linux), you just need to restore the
original boot sector. If Lilo is installed in /dev/hda, just do ``dd
if=/boot/boot.0300 of=/dev/hda bs=446 count=1'' (I personally just do
``cat /boot/boot.0300 > /dev/hda'', but this is not safe, as this will
restore the original partition table as well, which you might have
modified in the meanwhile). This command is much easier to run than
trying ``fdisk /mbr'' from a DOS shell: it allows you to cleanly
remove Linux from a disk without ever booting anything but Linux.
After removing Lilo remember to run Linux' fdisk to destroy any Linux
partition (DOS' fdisk is unable to remove non-dos partitions).

If you installed Lilo on your root partition (e.g., /dev/hda2),
nothing special needs to be done to uninstall Lilo. Just run Linux'
fdisk to remove Linux partitions from the partition table. You must
also mark the DOS partition as bootable.

2.5. How to make a ram disk?

Notice: If you find the next section difficult to read, you may also
look for the web page:
http://surfer.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/partition/ramdisk.html where you
would find the "original" of this contribution ...

by Tony Harris

16 Oct 2000

ram disk eenie-weenie HOWTO

If your root file system is on a device for which your kernel has no
compiled-in driver, you will need to use lilo to load that driver as a
module very early in the boot cycle. There are only two easy steps:

· make a ram disk image with /mkinitrd

· modify lilo.conf to point to the image

First, I cd over to /boot:

System.map chain.b module-info-2.2.16-3ext3
System.map-2.2.16-3 initrd-2.2.16-3.img vmlinux-2.2.16-3
System.map-2.2.16-3ext3 vmlinux-2.2.16-3ext3
vmlinuz kernel.h
boot.b map vmlinuz-2.2.16-3
bz.2.2.15.juke.Image module-info vmlinuz-2.2.16-3ext3
bzImage-2.2.14 module-info-2.2.16-3

Here you can see that I have a 2.2.16-3 kernel and I have added a
second kernel with ext3 support (vmlinuz-2.2.16-3ext3). There is
already a ram disk image for my first kernel (initrd-2.2.16-3.img)

To make a new image for the second kernel, I type the following (stuff
I type is in bold):

boot# mkinitrd initrd-2.2-16-3ext3.img 2.2.16-3ext3

mkinitrd is a shellscript that looks at the modules needed by my
kernel, then makes an ext2 filesystem containing them. If we look
inside the image we see this is the case:

boot# cat initrd-2.2.16-3ext3.img | gunzip > /tmp/myimage

boot# file /tmp/myimage

/tmp/myimage: Linux/i386 ext2 filesystem/

You do not have to look inside your image. Only making the image and
modifying lilo.conf are necessary steps. However, discussion of the
ramdisk image is provided for pedagogic purposes.

In order to look inside, I need to mount the image as though it were a
filesystem:

boot# mount /tmp/myimage /mnt/tmp -t ext2 -o loop=/dev/loop3

boot# ls /mnt/tmp

bin dev etc lib linuxrc

boot# find /mnt/tmp

mnt/tmp/

mnt/tmp/lib/

mnt/tmp/lib/aic7xxx.o/

mnt/tmp/bin/

mnt/tmp/bin/sh/

mnt/tmp/bin/insmod/

mnt/tmp/etc/

mnt/tmp/dev/

mnt/tmp/dev/console/

mnt/tmp/dev/null/

mnt/tmp/dev/ram/

mnt/tmp/dev/systty/

mnt/tmp/dev/tty1/

mnt/tmp/dev/tty2/

mnt/tmp/dev/tty3/

mnt/tmp/dev/tty4/

mnt/tmp/linuxrc/

The most important part of this ram disk image is aic7xxx.o, which is
my scsi module.

Finally, I move on to the last step, modifying /etc/lilo.conf:

Here is my entry in lilo.conf that corresponds to the kernel and image
I just created:

image=boot/vmlinuz-2.2.16-3ext3/

label=linux.ext3

initrd=boot/initrd-2.2.16-3ext3.img/

read-only

root=dev/hdb3/

That's it. Run /lilo as root and reboot.

If you have problems, check out the kernel HOWTO. There are a couple
things you need to have covered: you need your kernel modules compiled
and living in /etc/conf.modules.

3. The Simple Configuration

Most Lilo installations use a configuration file like the following
one:

boot = /dev/hda # or your root partition
delay = 10 # delay, in tenth of a second (so you can interact)
vga = 0 # optional. Use "vga=1" to get 80x50
#linear # try "linear" in case of geometry problems.

image = /boot/vmlinux # your zImage file
root = /dev/hda1 # your root partition
label = Linux # or any fancy name
read-only # mount root read-only

other = /dev/hda4 # your dos partition, if any
table = /dev/hda # the current partition table
label = dos # or any non-fancy name

You can have multiple ``image'' and ``other'' sections if you want.
It's not uncommon to have several kernel images configured in your
lilo.conf, at least if you keep up to date with kernel development.

3.1. How to Deal with Big Kernels

If you compile a ``zImage'' kernel and it is too big to fit in half a
megabyte (this is common with new 2.1 kernels), you should build a
``big zImage'' instead: ``make bzImage''. To boot a big kernel image
nothing special is needed, but you need version 18 or newer of Lilo.
If your installation is older, you should upgrade your Lilo package.

3.2. How to boot Windows NT from 'LILO boot:' menu

Here I will give you an order of routines you have to do if you want
to have both Linux and NT entries under Lilo menu:

· First of all, I would suggest you to install a fresh copy of
Windows NT 4.0 on your hard disk. I suppose that you already made a
backup of your important data, so the NT installation shouldn't be
a problem. During the NT installation, setup is not going to ask
you where to place NT's boot loader, so it would be placed into the
MBR (Master Boot Record) of your hard disk. But, there is a
possibility for a previous content of the MBR to remain within the
MBR (especially any previous Lilo), so I would suggest you (before
installation of NT) to boot the computer with a DOS floppy diskette
having DOS version of FDISK. At the prompt a:\ just enter the
command: fdisk /mbr and restart the computer again (without that
floppy).

· After you have successfully installed your NT, you will see that it
uses the whole hard disk or a specific partition of the hard disk
(depending on what you decided during the setup process). So, it
is advisable to 'shrink' the partition where NT resides in order to
make some free space on the disk. Onto that free space you will
install your Linux. After you have your NT configured and running,
you have to boot your computer using a floppy diskette with
Partition Magic utility by Power Quest. It is a graphical tool able
to see all partitions on all hard disks you have. The best thing is
that you can make some changes with your partitions but not to
destroy your existing data. One of the available changes is to make
your existing partition(s) smaller, so to get some free space on
the disk(s) for other purposes. Although you are advised to make a
backup before you make any changes to the partitions, I usually
practice to 'shrink' NT's partition before I installed anything but
NT itself (so, if needed, a repetitive re-installation wouldn't be
a problem). Well, Partition Magic (or any other similar utility
you are familiar with) will shrink your NT's partition (either NTFS
or FAT) to a smaller measure and place it to either the beginning
or to the end of the previous measure. It means that you may choose
to have your 'shrinked' NT partition at the beginning or at the end
of your disk (I usually choose NT to be at the beginning, so the
ending part of the disk will become a 'free space'). After the
'shrinking' is finished, you may re-boot your NT in order to check
the new situation: you may use Windows Explorer or Disk
Administrator for that.

· So far so good. Next step is to install your Linux. Case you are
familiar with RedHat distribution (I hope with other distros is the
same or similar), you start by putting your installation CD in the
drive and re-boot the computer). Well, when you are about to choose
what type of installation it will be (Gnome or KDE Workstation,
Custom, etc.) you may choose whatever you planned before, but I
would suggest to install a Workstation at first. This is good
because Linux setup will find automatically the free space on the
(first) hard disk, make all partitions needed for Linux, format
them properly, make majority of option by default so you won't have
much pain during the setup (later, if you want, you may either to
add missing components or re-install Linux as Custom over the
existing linux partitions). Lilo should go to the MBR.

· After it looks that Linux installation is finished, you are going
to re-start the computer and there there you will only see Lilo
with one Linux entry to boot (or maybe more than one Linux entry,
in case your hardware is multi-processor one). But, don't panic!
Your Windows NT is still there where you had installed it before
Linux. You should become some familiar with Linux as soon as
possible, in order to be able to find and edit your new
/etc/lilo.conf file. When you open this file for the first time,
you'll see that there is only one (or more) Linux entry. Well, you
should know the exact position (read: a partition) where Windows NT
has been installed, so you could add an appropriate entry into
/etc/lilo.conf file. After you do that, restart Lilo and, after the
next re-boot, you will have both 'linux' and 'nt' entries under
Lilo menu.

3.3. How to boot Windows 2000 from 'LILO boot:' menu

Well, you may use the same procedure as described above. I suggest
you to read Linux+WindowsNT <http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Linux+WinNT.html>
mini-HOWTO that also talks about booting Windows 2000, which is
installed on the same part of disk where Windows NT was before. There
you'll find many useful details regarding various Linux+WinNT/2000/98
combinations.

4. Installing hdc to Boot as hda and Using bios=

Lilo allows to map the kernel image from one disk and instruct the
BIOS to retrieve it from another disk. For example, it's common for me
to install Linux on a disk I connect to hdc (master disk of secondary
controller) and boot it as a standalong system on the primary IDE
controller of another computer. I copied the installation floppy to a
tiny partition, so I can run chroot in a virtual console to install
hdc while I use the system to do something else.

The lilo.conf file I use to install Lilo looks like:

# This file must be used from a system running off /dev/hdc
boot = /dev/hdc # overwrite MBR of hdc
disk = /dev/hdc # tell how hdc will look like:
bios = 0x80 # the bios will see it as first drive
delay = 0
vga = 0

image = /boot/vmlinux # this is on /dev/hdc1
root = /dev/hda1 # but at boot it will be hda1
label = Linux
read-only

This configuration file must be read by a Lilo running off /dev/hdc1.
The Lilo maps that get written the boot sector (/dev/hdc) must refer
to the files in /boot (currently installed as hdc); such files will be
accessed under hda when this disk will be booted as a standalone
system.

I call this configuration file /mnt/etc/lilo.conf.hdc (/mnt is where
hdc is mounted during the installation. I install Lilo by invoking
``cd /mnt; chroot . sbin/lilo -C /etc/lilo.conf.hdc''. Refer to the
manual page for chroot if this looks magic.

The ``bios='' directive in lilo.conf is used to tell Lilo what the
BIOS thinks of your devices. BIOS calls identify floppy disks and hard
drives with a number: 0x00 and 0x01 select the floppy drives, 0x80 and
the following numbers select hard disks (old BIOS-es can only access
two disks). The meaning of ``bios = 0x80 in the previous sample file
is therefore ``use 0x80 in your BIOS calls for /dev/hdc''.

This Lilo directive can be handy in other situations, for example when
your BIOS is able to boot from SCSI disks instead of IDE ones. When
both IDE and SCSI devices are there, Lilo can't tell whether 0x80 will
refer to one or the other because the user is able to choose it in the
BIOS configuration menus, and the BIOS can't be accessed while Linux
is running.

By default, Lilo assumes that IDE drives are mapped first by the BIOS,
but this can be overridden by using instructions like these in
/etc/lilo.conf:

disk = /dev/sda
bios = 0x80

5. Using Lilo When the BIOS Can't See the Root Partition

I have two IDE drives, and a SCSI drive. The SCSI drive can't be seen
from BIOS. The Linux Loader, Lilo, uses BIOS calls and can only see
drives that BIOS can see. My stupid AMI BIOS will only boot from "A:"
or "C:" My root file system is on a partition on the SCSI drive.

The solution consists in storing the kernel, map file, and chain
loader in a Linux partition on the first IDE. Notice that it is not
necessary to keep your kernel on your root partition.

The second partition on my first IDE (/dev/hda2, the Linux partition
used to boot the system) is mounted on /u2. Here is the
/etc/lilo.conf file I used.

# Install Lilo on the Master Boot Record
# on the first IDE.
#
boot = /dev/hda
# /sbin/lilo (the installer) copies the Lilo boot record
# from the following file to the MBR location.
install = /u2/etc/lilo/boot.b
#
# I wrote a verbose boot menu. Lilo finds it here.
message = /u2/etc/lilo/message
# The installer will build the following file. It tells
# the boot-loader where the blocks of the kernels are.
map = /u2/etc/lilo/map
compact
prompt
# Wait 10 seconds, then boot the 1.2.1 kernel by default.
timeout = 100
# The kernel is stored where BIOS can see it by doing this:
# cp -p /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/zImage /u2/z1.2.1
image = /u2/z1.2.1
label = 1.2.1
# Lilo tells the kernel to mount the first SCSI partition
# as root. BIOS does not have to be able to see it.
root = /dev/sda1
# This partition will be checked and remounted by /etc/rc.d/rc.S
read-only
# I kept an old Slackware kernel lying around in case I built a
# kernel that doesn't work. I actually needed this once.
image = /u2/z1.0.9
label = 1.0.9
root = /dev/sda1
read-only
# My DR-DOS 6 partition.
other = /dev/hda1
loader=/u2/etc/lilo/chain.b
label = dos
alias = m

6. How do i know the BIOS number for my SCSI disks

The contribution from Marc Tanguy (mtanguy@ens.uvsq.fr), 2001-09-27

6.1. The theory

Actually, it exists two ways to know it :

If you have an adaptec scsi card (2940u2, 29160, 39160), you simply
use the 'diagnose' mode (using BIOS v3.10.0 recommended). It must be
activated in the scsi card BIOS menu. Then you just have to wait and
see something like :

... ID LUN Vendor Product Rev Size Sync Bus HD#
... 0 0 QUANTUM ATLAS10K2 DDD6 17GB 160 16 80h
... 1 0 QUANTUM ATLAS10K2 DDD6 17GB 160 16 81h
... 2 0 IBM DDRS DC1B 4GB 80 16 82h
... 3 0 IBM DNES SAH0 9GB 80 16 83h

If you don't own an adaptec card, you have to know what is the
'booting' disk (usually ID 0, but not necessary, it can be defined in
the scsi card BIOS) where LILO is going to be found and start : this
is the first disk so it has number 0x80. Then it's very simple, the
BIOS follows the IDs.

By example :

ID 0 -> boot -> 0x80
ID 1 -> empty
ID 2 -> disk -> 0x81
ID 3 -> disk -> 0x82

ID 0 -> disk -> 0x81
ID 1 -> empty
ID 2 -> disk -> 0x82
ID 3 -> boot -> 0x80
ID 4 -> disk -> 0x83

This part doesn't care at all of what is installed on the scsi drives.
But you should note that if you use an ID higher than the SCSI adapter
it c an be a problem. So you should always try to set the SCSI adapter
ID after the SCSI devices IDs.

6.2. How to swap linux and NT booting ?

OK, but NT must be the first disk to boot, so i want it in 0x80, but i
already have LILO and a full ext2 only drive on 0x80 and my NT drive
is in 0x83. How can i 'swap' linux and NT ? This a very easy : you
just have to tell BIOS that NT drive is now 0x80 and the Linux drive
is 0x83.

other=/dev/sdd1
label=nt
map-drive = 0x83
to = 0x80
map-drive = 0x80
to = 0x83

This change will produce a warning :

Warning: BIOS drive 0x8? may not be accessible

but if you know what you are doing it will run without problem.

I used it on this configuration which has a Red Hat Linux 7.1 and a
Windows 2000 Pro :

Name Flags Part Type FS Type [Label] Size (MB)

Disk Drive: /dev/sda - 0x80
sda1 Boot Primary Linux ext2 [/boot] 24.68
sda2 Primary Linux Swap 139.83
sda3 Primary Linux ext2 [/usr] 3150.29
sda4 Primary Linux ext2 [/home] 15044.04

Disk Drive: /dev/sdb - 0x81
sdb1 Primary Linux Swap 139.83
sdb2 Primary Linux ext2 [/] 3150.29
sdb3 Primary Linux ext2 [/opt] 1052.84
sdb4 Primary Linux ext2 [/public] 14015.88

Disk Drive: /dev/sdc - 0x82
sdc1 Primary Linux ext2 [/var] 1052.84
sdc2 Primary Linux ext2 [/tmp] 106.93
sdc3 Primary Linux ext2 [/cache] 1052.84
sdc4 Primary Linux ext2 [/chroot] 2352.44

Disk Drive: /dev/sdd - 0x83
sdd1 Boot Primary NTFS [WINDOWS_2000] 9162.97

My full /etc/lilo.conf :

boot=/dev/sda
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
prompt
default=Linux
read-only
compact
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label=Linux
root=/dev/sdb2
other=/dev/sdd1
label=Windows
map-drive = 0x83
to = 0x80
map-drive = 0x80
to = 0x83

6.3. Miscellaneous

I just plugged a new scsi drive, and now LILO refuse to boot, what's
going on ?

When you plug a disk, you must be careful with the IDs. If you add a
drive between two already plugged disks the BIOS numbers are changed :

Before ----> After
scsi id - - BIOS id scsi id - - BIOS id
ID 0 - disk - 0x80 ID 0 - disk - 0x80
ID 1 - empty ID 1 - new disk - 0x81
ID 2 - disk - 0x81 ID 2 - disk - 0x82 !!

If you change the BIOS ids, you have to re-evaluate them.

7. Accessing Huge Disks When the BIOS Can't

Notice: 1GB is "Huge"? Well, once upon a time...

The system in my office has a 1GB IDE drive. The BIOS can only see
the first 504 MB of the IDE. (Where MB means 2**10 bytes, not 10**6
bytes.) So I have MS-DOS on a 350 MB partition /dev/hda1 and my Linux
root on a 120 MB partition /dev/hda2.

Hauke Laging (hauke@laging.de) and Bob Hall (bhall@hallfire.org) have
noticed a small mistake above, so they've suggested a MB to be 2**20
bytes rather than 2**10 bytes. Thanks for correction. In addition,
Hauke would like to learn more about what he called, "character codes
on LILO startup, when LILO dies with LI, LI-, LIL- or whatever". I'd
appreciate a contribution related to this issue or a valid web link to
that.

Here it is (a contribution by Zohar Stolar, zohar@numericable.fr):

B. LILO boot error codes

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Bootdisk-HOWTO/a1483.html
<http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Bootdisk-HOWTO/a1483.html>

Thanks for link.

MS-DOS was unable to install itself correctly when the drive was
fresh. Novell DOS 7 had the same problem. Luckily for me, "Options
by IBM" forgot to put the "OnTrack" diskette in the box with the
drive. The drive was supposed to come with a product called "OnTrack
Disk Manager." If you only have MSDOS, I guess you have to use it.

So I made a partition table with Linux' fdisk. MSDOS-6.2 refused to
install itself in /dev/hda1. It said something like ``this release of
MS-DOS is for new installations. Your computer already has MS-DOS so
you need to get an upgrade release from your dealer.'' Actually, the
disk was brand new.

What a crock! So I ran Linux' fdisk again and deleted partition 1
from the table. This satisfied MS-DOS 6.2 which proceeded to create
the exact same partition 1 I had just deleted and installed itself.
MS-DOS 6.2 wrote its Master Boot Record on the drive, but it couldn't
boot.

Luckily I had a Slackware kernel on floppy (made by the Slackware
installation program "setup"), so I booted Linux and wrote Lilo over
MS-DOS' broken MBR. This works. Here is the /etc/lilo.conf file I
used:

boot = /dev/hda
map = /lilo-map
delay = 100
ramdisk = 0 # Turns off ramdisk in Slackware kernel
timeout = 100
prompt
disk = /dev/hda # BIOS only sees first 500 MB.
bios = 0x80 # specifies the first IDE.
sectors = 63 # get the numbers from your drive's docs.
heads = 16
cylinders = 2100
image = /vmlinuz
append = "hd=2100,16,63"
root = /dev/hda2
label = linux
read-only
vga = extended
other = /dev/hda1
label = msdos
table = /dev/hda
loader = /boot/chain.b

After I installed these systems, I verified that the partition
containing the zImage, boot.b, map, chain.b, and message files can use
an msdos file system, as long as it is not "stackered" or
"doublespaced." So I could have made the DOS partition on /dev/hda1
500 MB.

I have also learned that "OnTrack" would have written a partition
table starting a few dozen bytes into the drive, instead of at the
beginning, and it is possible to hack the Linux IDE driver to work
around this problem. But installing would have been impossible with
the precompiled Slackware kernel. Eventually, IBM sent me an
"OnTrack" diskette. I called OnTrack's technical support. They told
me Linux is broken because Linux doesn't use BIOS. I gave their
diskette away.

8. Booting from a Rescue Floppy

Next, I installed Windows-95 on my office system. It blew away my
nice Lilo MBR, but it left my Linux partitions alone. Kernels take a
long time to load from floppy, so I made a floppy with a working Lilo
setup on it, which could boot my kernel from the IDE.

I made the lilo floppy like so:

fdformat /dev/fd0H1440 # lay tracks on virgin diskette
mkfs -t minix /dev/fd0 1440 # make file system of type minix
mount /dev/fd0 /mnt # mount in the standard tmp mount point
cp -p /boot/chain.b /mnt # copy the chain loader over
lilo -C /etc/lilo.flop # install Lilo and the map on the diskette.
umount /mnt

Notice that the diskette must be mounted when you run the installer so
that Lilo can write its map file properly.

This file is /etc/lilo.flop. It's almost the same as the last one:

# Makes a floppy that can boot kernels from HD.
boot = /dev/fd0
map = /mnt/lilo-map
delay = 100
ramdisk = 0
timeout = 100
prompt
disk = /dev/hda # 1 GB IDE, BIOS only sees first 500 MB.
bios=0x80
sectors = 63
heads = 16
cylinders = 2100
image = /vmlinuz
append = "hd=2100,16,63"
root = /dev/hda2
label = linux
read-only
vga = extended
other = /dev/hda1
label = msdos
table = /dev/hda
loader = /mnt/chain.b

Finally, I needed MS-DOS 6.2 on my office system, but I didn't want to
touch the first drive. I added a SCSI controller and drive, made an
msdos file system on it with Linux' mkdosfs, and Windows-95 sees it as
"D:". But of course MSDOS will not boot off of D:. This is not a
problem when you have Lilo. I added the following to the lilo.conf in
Example 2.

other = /dev/sda1
label = d6.2
table = /dev/sda
loader = /boot/any_d.b

With this modification MSDOS-6.2 runs, and it thinks it is on C: and
Windows-95 is on D:.

9. LILO after the installation of Mandrake Linux 9.1 on HP products

2003-11-19

9.1. Description of the products used in this experiment

Notice: Folks, that part is NOT a commercial for HP production of any
means! In fact, a series of HP computers I have been using has
delivered failures in power supply units, problems with hard disks
etc. On the other side, laptop's batteries get exhausted earlier than
expected. Other than these issues, HP machines are fine.

HP Omnibook 6000

A laptop computer Omnibook 6000 is equipped with a 'bootable' DVD
drive and recently, at an ICT conference, I bought a bootable DVD-ROM
with Mandrake Linux 9.1 installation. After booting the laptop with
that bootable DVD, it gets directly to the Linux installation menu.

HP Vectra VL420 (used as a server)

In opposite, an HP Vectra VL420 doesn't have a DVD drive (it only has
a CD drive), so the direct installation from that particular
installation DVD is not possible. But, an option of making a bootable
floppy disk for starting the installation procedure is possible. In
fact, several boot images are available for those users who don't have
(bootable or not) DVD drive. One of the images is a 'network' one.
That means, in a local area network there has to be either a NFS, FTP
or HTTP server from which the installation will take place.

HP Vectra VL420 (used as a workstation)

Another VL420 desktop system I also use, has a spare HDD from a
previous Windows 2000 server installation (actually, that IDE disk was
moved from the other computer where it was a primary one and here it
is the second one disk for backup data). The nice things is that it
has a HTTP and FTP servers installed (of course, usable if the system
is boot from that disk). That was good so I could use one of these
servers now.

So, I made a 'network' bootable floppy and booted the first Vectra
VL420 (intended to be a Linux server) with it. After a while, it came
to a point to choose the installation method (NFS or FTP or HTTP
server). At first, I wanted to use the second 'spare' HTTP server at
the other Vectra mentioned above, but regardless of what permission I
tried to give to the 'Everyone' group of Windows users, I always got
the following answer from the Linux setup:

Error: Couldn't get file ... (or something like that)

Then I tried to use the FTP 'spare' server from the second Vectra and
at first it also asked for local and remote IP addresses. That time
successfully, it started to load a part of the remote Linux files into
its memory without any complaint. Soon after, it came to the very same
position as Omnibook 6000 did: it got directly to the installation
menu, asking a user to choose a language for the installation use.

>From that point, the setup process was almost the same...

I have chosen/confirmed the following items:

- a language to use, besides English(American) as default: I added
Unicode and Serbian (both Cyrillic and Latin); - a mouse and keyboard;
- a security level - I accepted defaults: 'Standard' for laptop and
'Higher' for server;

The next important task was to choose one of DrakX partitioning
options:

- for laptop I chose the 'Use the free space on the Windows
partition', because the laptop has one IDE hard disk and I wanted it
to use a part of it for Linux (besides existing Windows 2000 Prof.
already installed). Windows' Disk Management reported:

Disk 0 15 MB FAT (HP Diagnostics or like)
7.13 GB FAT32 (C: "HPNOTEBOOK")
20.80 GB Free space

The two partitions (FAT & FAT32) were made during the installation
procedure using HP's supplied installation CD's.

At the first moment, Linux setup complained that my Windows partition
"was too fragmented" and required me to reboot under Windows, run the
"defrag" utility, then restart the Mandrake Linux installation. The
defragmentation process have taken cca. 1.5 hour to be completed!
When restarted the setup, it wanted to use 7.13 GB Windows partition,
instead of 20.80 GB. I chose to 'Use the free space'. Then it made
partitions for Linux: /dev/hda5 and /dev/hda7.

- for Vectra VL420 I used 'Custom disk partitioning' because there I
had two SCSI disks, one of them running Windows 2000 Server already
installed, and the other one I wanted to use entirely for a Linux
server. BTW, I wasn't sure what the option 'Erase entire disk' would
do during its next step (erase a whole disk or a partition?), although
it also may be the proper solution too. DrakX recognized the two SCSI
disks as sda and sdb and I chose sdb to install Linux. The first step
was to 'Clear all' and after that to 'Auto allocate' the space on that
second disk. Finally, after a 'Done' it appeared to make /dev/sdb1
and /dev/sdb6 Linux partitions.

9.2. What does LILO looks like on these HP products

HP Omnibook 6000

HP Vectra VL420 (installed as a desktop client Linux system)

boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
vga=normal
default="windows"
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="quiet devfs=mount acpi=off"
vga=788 <--- that line is missing at laptop with LCD screen above.
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux-nonfb"
root=/dev/hda5
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="devfs=mount acpi=off"
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="failsafe"
root=/dev/hda5
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="failsafe devfs=nomount acpi=off"
read-only
other=/dev/hda1 <--- /dev/hda1 seems not to be reserved for HP diags here.
label="windows" There I have Windows 2000 Professional already
table=/dev/hda installed (probably without HP's supplied CD's).
other=/dev/hdb1 <--- that is the spare disk with Windows 2000 Server.
label="windows2" Actually I had some data on it and used it as a
table=/dev/hdb second, backup disk on that desktop workstation.
map-drive=0x80 I have never tried to boot the computer from it, but
to=0x81 Mandrake's setup offered it as a boot option.
map-drive=0x81 (And that was useful as a FTP server, needed to install
to=0x80 Mandrake Linux on the other box - without DVD drive too).
other=/dev/fd0
label="floppy"
unsafe

HP Vectra VL420 (installed as a desktop Linux system with server
features)

boot=/dev/sda <--- /dev/sda is the first SCSI disk where LILO resides (MBR).
map=/boot/map
vga=normal
default="windows"
keytable=/boot/us.klt
prompt
nowarn
timeout=100
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux"
root=/dev/sdb1 <--- /dev/sdb1 is the second SCSI disk where Linux resides.
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="quiet devfs=mount acpi=off"
vga=788
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux-nonfb"
root=/dev/sdb1
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="devfs=mount acpi=off"
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz-secure
label="linux-secure" <--- something related to the Linux server security?
root=/dev/sdb1
initrd=/boot/initrd-secure.img
append="quiet devfs=mount acpi=off"
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="failsafe"
root=/dev/sdb1
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="failsafe devfs=nomount acpi=off"
read-only
other=/dev/sda1 <--- /dev/sda1 is the first partition on the first SCSI disk where Windows resides.
label="windows"
table=/dev/sda

9.3. Conclusions

>From the examples above, you could see that I have been using various
computer forms with also various types of hard disk. Somewhere there
is only one IDE drive, somewhere else there are two of them, otherwise
there are a couple of SCSI drives etc. Regardless of that, I always
tried to put LILO into the MBR - located on the first disk. Now it
looks like that Linux finally managed to solve the old 1024 cyl
problem. In fact, LILO seems to be capable to boot Linux regardless it
is placed close to the rest of Linux partitions or not.

There are some other considerations related to the experiment above,
but they are part of the other fine document: Linux+WindowsNT
<http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Linux+WinNT.html> mini-HOWTO.

10. Bibliography

2005-10-09

Notice: I often participate to (inter)national ICT conferences in
Serbia & Montenegro, as well as abroad, presenting papers and having
tutorials. For example, here you may see me
<http://www.jisa.org.yu/Kongres/2005/slike/radni%20deo/radni%20deo%20800x600/Miroslav_Skoric_OkrRadvez.jpg>
speaking to the audience. The picture was taken during a round table
session in Herceg Novi
<http://www.jisa.org.yu/Kongres/2005/Okruglisto_rad-kom_e.htm>. What I
have been doing is to spread - as much as possible - the basic ideas
and the useful mission of the amateur radio hobby. You bet, whenever
possible I want my readers to make it with Linux. Besides that, I have
been writing various articles for a variety of scientific and other
magazines. Here you have a list of the articles I have written, and
the papers submitted to the conferences until now.

In case you want to re-publish or forward my volunteer paper works to
some journals or other public media around, you are free to contact
me. Some of my papers are written in Serbian Cyrillic, some of them
are in English and some of them even combined!

- "U prilog I.A.C.", MI (the youth scientists' organization
newspaper), No. 69, 1990.

- "U prilog I.A.C. (2)", MI (the youth scientists' organization
newspaper), No. 70, 1990.

- "Vise od radio-amaterskog hobija", Vojska, No. 163, 1995.

- "Korak ka zvezdama", Vojska, No. 200, 1996.

- "Die Gefahr von Innen - Internet gegen Amateurfunk",
AMSAT-DL Journal, No. 4, Dez./Feb. 96/97.

- "Kakva nam organizacija (ne) treba?", Radioamater,
Feb. 1997.

- "Kakva nam organizacija (ne) treba? (2)", Radioamater,
Apr./May. 1997.

- "Sateliti umiru padajuci", Vojska, No. 235, 1997.

- "The Internet is not the Enemy", QST, Aug. 1998.

- "Novi radio-amateri za novi vek", Antena, June 2000.

- "Racunarske komunikacije putem radio-veza i
zastita pristupa", Bezbednost, No. 3, 2000.

- "Paket-radio - Racunarske komunikacije putem radio-veza",
proceedings, "Info-Teh", Vrnjacka Banja, Serbia, 2001.

- "Racunarske komunikacije putem radio-amaterskih veza",
proceedings, "YU-Info", Kopaonik, Serbia, 2002.

- "Computer Communications over radio", presentation,
"Linux FEST", Belgrade, Serbia, 2002.

- "Paket-radio - Radio-amaterske digitalne veze",
proceedings, "Kongres JISA", Herceg Novi, Montenegro, 2002.

- "Paket-radio (2) - Modemi za radio-veze",
proceedings, "Info-Teh", Vrnjacka Banja, Serbia, 2002.

- "Alternativne racunarske mreze", festival catalog,
"INFOFEST", Budva, Montenegro, 2002.

- "Alternative computer networks", proceedings, "TELFOR",
Belgrade, Serbia, 2002.

- "With rule and regulation improvements to the progress"
proceedings, "TELFOR", Belgrade, Serbia, 2002.

- "Racunarske komunikacije putem radio-amaterskih veza (2)",
proceedings, "YU-Info", Kopaonik, Serbia, 2003.

- "Racunarske komunikacije putem radio-amaterskih veza (3)",
proceedings, "YU-Info", Kopaonik, Serbia, 2003.

- "Paket-radio (3) - Programske mogucnosti na strani servera",
proceedings, "Info-Teh", Vrnjacka Banja, Serbia, 2003.

- "Paket-radio (4) - Legal rules and regulations in the amateur
computer networks", proceedings, "Info-Teh", Vrnjacka Banja,
Serbia, 2003.

- "Packet-radio (2) - With rule and regulation improvements to the progress",
proceedings, "Kongres JISA", Herceg Novi, Montenegro, 2003.

- "Alternativne racunarske mreze (2)", festival catalog,
"INFOFEST", Budva, Montenegro, 2003.

- "Alternativne racunarske komunikacije putem radio-veza",
Info M, 6-7/2003.

- "Legal Rules and Regulations in the Amateur Radio Computer Networks",
proceedings, "22nd ARRL and TAPR Digital Communications Conference",
Hartford, CT USA, 2003.

- "Favoritism", IEEE Potentials, Oct/Nov 2003

- "Alternative computer networks (2)", proceedings, "TELFOR",
Belgrade, Serbia, 2003.

- "With rule and regulation improvements to the progress (2)"
proceedings, "TELFOR", Belgrade, Serbia, 2003.

- "XI Telekomunikacioni forum - TELFOR 2003", Info M, 8/2003.

- "Aktivnosti organizacije IEEE Computer Society - YU Chapter"
Info M, 8/2003.

- "Yugoslavia IEEE Student Branch", IEEE Region 8 News,
Vol. 7 No. 1, Feb/Mar 2004

- "Radio-amaterske racunarske mreze", tutorial, "Info-Teh",
Vrnjacka Banja, Serbia, 2004.

- "Radio-amaterske racunarske mreze", tutorial, "Kongres
JISA", Herceg Novi, Montenegro, 2004.

- "The Amateur Radio as a Learning Technology in
Developing Countries", proceedings, "ICALT/TEDC 2004",
Joensuu, Finland, 2004.

- "The Amateur Radio in Engineering Education", seminar,
"IEEE-EESTEC Technical Conference 2004", Arcavacata
di Rende (Cosenza), Italy, 2004.

- "The Conference Low-Down", IEEE Potentials, Feb/Mar 2005

- "ICALT 2004, IEEE Novi Sad SB, Serbia & Montenegro",
IEEE Region 8 News, Vol. 8 No. 1, Mar 2005

- "The Conference Low-Down", IEEE Potentials, Apr/May 2005

- "The Amateur Radio Networking And Computing", proceedings,
"PSU-UNS ICEE 2005", Novi Sad, Serbia, 2005

- "Radio-amaterske racunarske mreze", tutorial, "Info-Teh",
Vrnjacka Banja, Serbia, 2005 (intro: dr D. Surla, PMF)

- "Radio-veze", round table session, "Kongres JISA", Herceg
Novi, Montenegro, 2005.

- "The New Amateur Radio University Network - AMUNET",
proceedings, "9th WSEAS CSCC Multiconference",
Vouliagmeni, Athens, Greece, 2005.

- "The perspectives of the Amateur University Network -
AMUNET", WSEAS Transactions on Communications, Vol 4,
pp 834, Sep. 2005.

- "Conferences in Serbia and Montenegro", IEEE Region 8 News,
Vol. 8 No. 3, Sep 2005

Besides these articles published and papers presented, I have been
studying for an M.Sc. degree in computing. I am also the member of the
following associations: IEEE Computer Society, IEEE Communications
Society and ACM. In addition, I have been voluntarily working on
establishing an academy computer network that would use the amateur
radio stations as the media. Such networks exist somewhere else on the
globe and I invite their administrators to contact me in order to
cooperate.

11. Further Information

11.1. Copyright

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or
any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover
Texts. A copy of the license is available from
http://www.fsf.org/licenses/fdl.html.

11.2. Disclaimer

Use the information in this document at your own risk. I disavow any
potential liability of this document. Use of the concepts, examples,
and/or other content of this document is entirely at your own risk.

All copyrights are owned by their owners, unless specifically noted
otherwise. Use of a term in this document should not be regarded as
affecting the validity of any trademark or service mark.

Naming of particular products or brands should not be seen as
endorsements.

You are strongly recommended to take a backup of your system before
major installation and backups at regular intervals.

11.3. News

In addition to the Lilo docs, there are a number of mini-howto's that
can be useful for your needs. All of them are called ``Linux+foobar-
OS'', for some foobar-OS, they deal with coexistence of Linux and
other operating system(s). For example, "NT OS Loader + Linux mini-
HOWTO" by Bernd Reichert, describes how to add an entry for Linux
under existing Windows NT Loader's menu. Next, you have
Linux+WindowsNT <http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Linux+WinNT.html> mini-HOWTO
written by myself, covering how to add an entry for NT under existing
Linux Lilo menu (more detailed than here). Also, "Multiboot-with-
LILO" describes how the various Windows flavors can be made to coexist
with Linux.

This mini-HOWTO would be improved from time to time. If you think that
the HOWTO on your Linux installation CD is some out-of-date, you may
check for newest release on the Internet. It could be found within the
main Linux Documentation Project <http://www.linuxdoc.org/> homepage
or this one: Linux Documentation Project <http://www.tldp.org/>.

11.4. Credits

This version of mini-HOWTO can thanks to:

Cameron Spitzer (cls@truffula.sj.ca.us)
Alessandro Rubini (rubini@linux.it)
Tony Harris (tony@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu)
Marc Tanguy (mtanguy@ens.uvsq.fr)
Dragomir Kalaba, a local Linux 'guru'

Any comments or suggestions can be mailed to my email address: skoric
at eunet dot yu

11.5. HOWTO

These are intended as the primary starting points to get the
background information as well as show you how to solve a specific
problem. Some relevant HOWTOs are Bootdisk, Installation, SCSI and
UMSDOS. The main site for these is the LDP archive
<http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/> at Metalab (formerly known as Sunsite).

11.6. Mini-HOWTO

These are the smaller free text relatives to the HOWTOs. Some
relevant mini-HOWTOs are Backup-With-MSDOS, Diskless, LILO, Large
Disk, Linux+DOS+Win95+OS2, Linux+OS2+DOS, Linux+Win95,
Linux+WindowsNT, Linux+NT-Loader, NFS-Root, Win95+Win+Linux, ZIP
Drive, FBB packet-radio BBS. You can find these at the same place as
the HOWTOs, usually in a sub directory called mini. Note that these
are scheduled to be converted into SGML and become proper HOWTOs in
the near future.

11.7. Local Resources

In most distributions of Linux there is a document directory
installed, have a look in the /usr/doc directory. where most packages
store their main documentation and README files etc. Also you will
here find the HOWTO archive ( /usr/doc/HOWTO) of ready formatted
HOWTOs and also the mini-HOWTO archive ( /usr/doc/HOWTO/mini
<file:///usr/doc/HOWTO/mini>) of plain text documents.

Many of the configuration files mentioned earlier can be found in the
/etc directory. In particular you will want to work with the
/etc/fstab file that sets up the mounting of partitions and possibly
also /etc/mdtab file that is used for the md system to set up RAID.

The kernel source in /usr/src/linux <file:///usr/src/linux> is, of
course, the ultimate documentation. In other words, use the source,
Luke. It should also be pointed out that the kernel comes not only
with source code which is even commented (well, partially at least)
but also an informative documentation directory
<file:///usr/src/linux/Documentation>. If you are about to ask any
questions about the kernel you should read this first, it will save
you and many others a lot of time and possibly embarrassment.

Also have a look in your system log file ( /var/log/messages) to see
what is going on and in particular how the booting went if too much
scrolled off your screen. Using tail -f /var/log/messages in a
separate window or screen will give you a continuous update of what is
going on in your system.

You can also take advantage of the /proc file system that is a window
into the inner workings of your system. Use cat rather than more to
view the files as they are reported as being zero length. Reports are
that less works well here.

11.8. Web Pages

There is a huge number of informative web pages out there and by their
very nature they change quickly so don't be too surprised if these
links become quickly outdated.

A good starting point is of course the Linux Documentation Project
<http://www.linuxdoc.org/> home page, or this one: Linux
Documentation Project <http://www.tldp.org/>, an information central
for documentation, project pages and much, much more.

Please let me know if you have any other leads that can be of
interest.

12. Getting help

In the end you might find yourself unable to solve your problems and
need help from someone else. The most efficient way is either to ask
someone local or in your nearest Linux user group, search the web for
the nearest one.

Another possibility is to ask on Usenet News in one of the many, many
newsgroups available. The problem is that these have such a high
volume and noise (called low signal-to-noise ratio) that your question
can easily fall through unanswered.

No matter where you ask it is important to ask well or you will not be
taken seriously. Saying just my disk does not work is not going to
help you and instead the noise level is increased even further and if
you are lucky someone will ask you to clarify.

Instead describe your problems in some detail that will enable people
to help you. The problem could lie somewhere you did not expect.
Therefore you are advised to list up the following information on your
system:

Hardware

· Processor

· DMA

· IRQ

· Chip set (LX, BX etc)

· Bus (ISA, VESA, PCI etc)

· Expansion cards used (Disk controllers, video, IO etc)

Software

· BIOS (On motherboard and possibly SCSI host adapters)

· LILO, if used

· Linux kernel version as well as possible modifications and
patches

· Kernel parameters, if any

· Software that shows the error (with version number or date)

Peripherals

· Type of disk drives with manufacturer name, version and type

· Other relevant peripherals connected to the same busses

Remember that booting text is logged to /var/log/messages which can
answer most of the questions above. Obviously if the drives fail you
might not be able to get the log saved to disk but you can at least
scroll back up the screen using the SHIFT and PAGE UP keys. It may
also be useful to include part of this in your request for help but do
not go overboard, keep it brief as a complete log file dumped to
Usenet News is more than a little annoying.