[TriLUG] grub and lilo problem

[Aaron S. Joyner]

William Villalba wrote:

> Hi David,
>
> Thanks for your reply...That is the problem I am having, however, I do 
> not think that the system is an "old one." This is precisely what I do 
> not understand, since both motherboard and processor are, as far as I 
> know, capable of reading large disks--the motherboard is an Intel 
> D865GBF and the processor is also an Intel P-4.
> A bit frustrating...but, thanks so much anyhow...

One Wild Flaming Guess(tm), coming right up!

How is this drive partitioned?  Is the kernel in the first cylinders?  
Does LILO boot with LILILILILILILI?
It's a common problem to create a single partition, which is 
significantly large, such that the kernel ends up beyond the 1024th 
cylinder on the disk.  The net result being that LILO is unable to boot 
to the disk.  The generally practiced solution is to have a /boot 
partition, which lives at the beginning of the disk, and contains the 
kernel.  You can create a symlink from /vmlinuz -> /boot/vmlinuz for 
convenience, as needed.

Although, with GRUB, this problem should magically disappear, as it 
understands the file systems and can chase the file where ever it 
actually is, regardless of disk geometry.  Can you be more specific 
about what errors you get, or what happens when Grub can not boot your 
system?

Aaron S. Joyner