🚀 go-pugleaf

"Kevin Huang Y.T." <huangyut@cse.msu.edu> writes:

	   I'm installing redhat on my AST J50 Laptop. Almost the end of the
   installation, when I'm going through the step to install lilo, the system
   returns this message:
	   First sector of /dev/hda5 doesn't have a valid boot signature.

You are doing something wrong.  The message above can only appear if
you are *uninstalling* LILO with the command `lilo -u'.  There is no
way for it to appear when installing LILO.
-- 
Regarding a Microsoft/Xerox agreement:
	"This is a match made in heaven. 
	 Both companies excel at copying other people's work."
--douglas@min.net <URL:http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/05/16/2211252>

Ben Pfaff signed with:
> Regarding a Microsoft/Xerox agreement:
>         "This is a match made in heaven.
>          Both companies excel at copying other people's work."

Yes, but at least Xerox gives you a reasonably
good result....

Cheers
Roger caffin

Sure, I think my lilo.conf is broken. When I boot up with the boodisk, I
go into the /root, ls, this is not a single file there... help! 
K.

On Sat, 17 Jul 1999, Tarkaan wrote:

> Kevin Huang Y.T. wrote:
> > 
> >         I'm installing redhat on my AST J50 Laptop. Almost the end of the
> > installation, when I'm going through the step to install lilo, the system
> > returns this message:
> >         First sector of /dev/hda5 doesn't have a valid boot signature.
> 
> I had a similar issue.  Your lilo.conf is broken.  Try using /dev/hda2
> where you would put /dev/hda5 ...
> 
> And now I see why it's a bad idea to put linux anywhere in a newsgroup
> name...
> 
> -- Jack Tarkaan                                      Kalamazoo, Michigan
> -- http://www.bigfoot.com/~tarkaan            mailto:tarkaan@bigfoot.com
> -- NO UNSOLICITED E-MAIL AT THIS ADDRESS - Respect privacy - NO SPAM!!!!
> 
> 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  "There's only one success - to be able to spend your life
  in your own way."
				--- Chrsitopher Morley
**************************************************************

In aus.computers.linux on Wed, 21 Jul 1999 17:37:33 -0400
Kevin Huang Y.T. <huangyut@cse.msu.edu> wrote:
>Sure, I think my lilo.conf is broken. When I boot up with the boodisk, I
>go into the /root, ls, this is not a single file there... help! 

IN /root there won't be.  it's the homedir of the rot users, so 
there will only be some config files.  They start with a . and
ls won't see them.
	cd /root
	ls -a
will find them too (man ls...)

but 
	cd /
	ls
should find something :)

Zebee

try going into /home and see if you see anything there. this happened to me upon
my first terminal login.

Christopher



"Kevin Huang Y.T." wrote:

> Sure, I think my lilo.conf is broken. When I boot up with the boodisk, I
> go into the /root, ls, this is not a single file there... help!
> K.
>
> On Sat, 17 Jul 1999, Tarkaan wrote:
>
> > Kevin Huang Y.T. wrote:
> > >
> > >         I'm installing redhat on my AST J50 Laptop. Almost the end of the
> > > installation, when I'm going through the step to install lilo, the system
> > > returns this message:
> > >         First sector of /dev/hda5 doesn't have a valid boot signature.
> >
> > I had a similar issue.  Your lilo.conf is broken.  Try using /dev/hda2
> > where you would put /dev/hda5 ...
> >
> > And now I see why it's a bad idea to put linux anywhere in a newsgroup
> > name...
> >
> > -- Jack Tarkaan                                      Kalamazoo, Michigan
> > -- http://www.bigfoot.com/~tarkaan            mailto:tarkaan@bigfoot.com
> > -- NO UNSOLICITED E-MAIL AT THIS ADDRESS - Respect privacy - NO SPAM!!!!
> >
> >
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>   "There's only one success - to be able to spend your life
>   in your own way."
>                                 --- Chrsitopher Morley
> **************************************************************

no, Ive got the same error, and im certainly not trying to uninstall
lilo

/etc/lilo.conf looks ok too, and lilo -v doesn't give much away... the
usual "adding ..." then the error.

In article <87vhbjymzo.fsf@pfaffben.user.msu.edu>,
  pfaffben@msu.edu wrote:
> "Kevin Huang Y.T." <huangyut@cse.msu.edu> writes:
>
> 	   I'm installing redhat on my AST J50 Laptop. Almost the end of
the
>    installation, when I'm going through the step to install lilo, the
system
>    returns this message:
> 	   First sector of /dev/hda5 doesn't have a valid boot
signature.
>
> You are doing something wrong.  The message above can only appear if
> you are *uninstalling* LILO with the command `lilo -u'.  There is no
> way for it to appear when installing LILO.
> --
> Regarding a Microsoft/Xerox agreement:
> 	"This is a match made in heaven.
> 	 Both companies excel at copying other people's work."
> --douglas@min.net
<URL:http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/05/16/2211252>
>


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Hmmm I think I have a little more to add after some investigations...

First of all my own particular "doesn't have a valid boot signature"
error is:

1. Nothing to do with getting the partition name wrong. I can mount it
from a boot disk... and its the right one.

2. Nothing to do with trying to *UNINSTALL* lilo.

I have nooticed that I get the error at the end of a kernel install.
('make install' from /usr/src/linux). And I think I didnt get the
problem until after I did a kernel install.

I maybe wrong here but I think lilo takes a look at the partitions its
about to add, and checks to see if there is a bootable OS there. If
there is not (or it belives there is not) it gives the error. This
leaves us two possibilities:

1. Lilo cant see a bootable OS even though it is there. Maybe there is a
fault with lilo which means it cant see a bootable OS created by the new
red hat 6 source files.

2. The red hat 6 source if generating an unbootable kernel. Unlikely.

I think lilo cant see a bootable red hat 6 OS.

So im digging deeper... probably into the lilo source.

Ile report back.


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Ok heres what ive found.

Lilo is looking for AA55h at byte 510 of the boot sector of the
partition. On my system it was AA53H.

I was sure that the partition was right so I did something quite dirty!
I removed the check from LILO, recompiled, and ran it. It all worked ok.
It fixed the boot sector, and I can now use a proper unmodified LILO. I
dont know how the boot signature became wrong, and Im not sugesting this
solution would work for someone else, but is certainly worked for me.

The chenge I found best was to put a change in common.c:

volatile void die(char *fmt,...)
{
    va_list ap;
return; /* Hacked. Delete when done! */
    fflush(stdout);
    va_start(ap,fmt);
    vfprintf(stderr,fmt,ap);
    va_end(ap);
    fputc('\n',stderr);
    exit(1);
}

If anyone else trys this technique I would stress that it should be
viewd as a quick & dirty solution to the problem I had. It may not fix
yours, and it may well make things worse.

Ive deleted my hacked version of LILO now, so I wont accidently run a
version with no sanity checks in it.

Cheers.


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