🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <WHITTENG.95Jun20070024@act1.clark.net>,
Gary Whitten <whitteng@act1.clark.net> wrote:
> What I believe is normally done ...
>   ... It seems like you are trying to do some non-standard things
>which may be making life difficult. First, you are trying to boot
>from floppy instead of hard drive, and second you do not seem to be
>using LILO as the master boot record.
> 
> To install LILO after standard Linux instalation, just run /sbin/lilo
>and make sure your /etc/lilo.conf is setup for the partitions and
>booting scheme you would like (see the Linux LILO howto and/or
>"Running Linux").

Thanks from your suggestions.  I've been doing all manner of variations
on the latter; I'm looking for more detail.  As for the former, the use
of LILO from a floppy has been suggested / mandated for security and
paranoia reasons - so we don't overwrite the "real" MBR, and so that
the machine can't be booted in Linux mode without the floppy disk.
(You decide which is security and which is paranoia.)  The primary
partition is an MS-DOS partition, which - if I read the documents
a-right - may not have LiLo as its MBR.  That is also the boot parti-
tion, in the absence of a floppy disk.

In any case, the problem is not that I don't know how to run the LiLo
install program, or that I don't know where to put it.  The problem is
that I can't get LiLo to generate a correct boot sector for the new
drive when I make the new drive the primary drive.  (It will eventually
be running as the only drive on the system.)

In detail, the problem seems to be as follows:

If I specify the first IDE disk as the root, the install program
appears to store a disk [hardware] name equivalent to hda, and to store
the sector numbers of the /boot/boot.b file on that disk.  [Yes!  It
appears to use sector numbers, rather than parsing the file system!
While this is quicker, it is certainly causing problems for me!]  Then,
when I switch the new drive to being the Master drive, it looks for the
/boot/boot.b on the new drive, but at the sector locations where the
file is located on the old disk.

If I mount the second IDE disk and specify it as the root, the install
program appears to store a disk [hardware] name equivalent to hdb, and
to store the sector numbers of the /boot/boot.b file on that disk.
Then, when I switch this drive back to being the Master drive, it tries
to find /boot/boot.b on the old drive, but at the sector locations
where the file is located on the new disk.

Any suggestions on how to mix disk designation and boot sectors?

Thanks.

-- 
Joe Yao				jsdy@cais.com - Joseph S. D. Yao