[NCLUG] KRUD 7.2 Boot Failure

[Matt Taggart]

"Rich Young" writes...

> Scott-
> 	I have a hard disk that I think has a bad sector in the master boot rec
> ord;
> boot always fails halfway through spelling "LILO" (that is, at the "LI" you

The printing of LILO is actually a debugging tool. From the LILO manual
(/usr/share/doc/lilo/Manual.txt.gz on my Debian system),


   (<nothing>)  No part of LILO has been loaded. LILO either isn't installed 
    or the partition on which its boot sector is located isn't active. 
   L <error> ...   The first stage boot loader has been loaded and started, 
    but it can't load the second stage boot loader. The two-digit error 
    codes indicate the type of problem. (See also section "Disk error 
    codes".) This condition usually indicates a media failure or a geometry 
    mismatch (e.g. bad disk parameters, see section "Disk geometry"). 
   LI   The first stage boot loader was able to load the second stage boot 
    loader, but has failed to execute it. This can either be caused by a 
    geometry mismatch or by moving /boot/boot.b without running the map 
    installer. 
   LIL   The second stage boot loader has been started, but it can't load 
    the descriptor table from the map file. This is typically caused by a 
    media failure or by a geometry mismatch. 
   LIL?   The second stage boot loader has been loaded at an incorrect 
    address. This is typically caused by a subtle geometry mismatch or by 
    moving /boot/boot.b without running the map installer. 
   LIL-   The descriptor table is corrupt. This can either be caused by a 
    geometry mismatch or by moving /boot/map without running the map 
    installer. 
   LILO   All parts of LILO have been successfully loaded. 


I've seen the problem where it only does "LI" a few times and rerunning lilo 
sucsessfully is what fixes it. Installing grub fixes it too :)

-- 
Matt Taggart
taggart at fc.hp.com