John K. Herreshoff wrote:

> John K. Herreshoff wrote:
>
>> heavytull wrote:
>>
>>> On Apr 22, 10:45 pm, "John K. Herreshoff" <n...@not.here> wrote:
>>>> heavytullwrote:
>>>> > My slackware 11 is hanging at the point "BIOSdata ckeck" just after
>>>> > booting it via lilo.
>>>>
>>>> > It is hapening like that since i changed the booting devices order in
>>>> > theBIOS;
>>>>
>>>> > i just shifted the boot on USD HDD from 5th or farther to third just
>>>> > before the main hardware on which there is the linux partition and
>>>> > windows.
>>>>
>>>> > also note that however is my usb key (plugged in or not) Linux is
>>>> > hanging.
>>>>
>>>> Try this just for fun: in your lilo.conf, set vga=ask and see what
>>>> happens.
>>>> Remember to run lilo as root after changing the lilo.conf file. You
>>>> may have a problem with the frame buffer...
>>>>
>>>> John.
>>>
>>> i said that linux was hanging, it means that i cannot run lilo.
>>>
>>> i could maybe run a linux live like slax, but i don't know how to run
>>> lilo or anything else as if / was the partition of the linux that is
>>> not booting on the hard drive.
>>
>> Oh duuhhhh. Yeah... You need a rescue disk to boot linux and then
>> fiddle with lilo.conf.
>>
>> Here's what I just worked out...
>>
>> 1) boot with your slackware #1 CD, and get to the command line... you
>> will be root.
>>
>> 2) Here is where it may get tricky if you have a 'fancy' partition
>> table. You will need to mount the partition containing /etc and the
>> partition
>> containing /usr/bin. We'll assume that you have just one partition
>> located
>> on hda1. So cd to /mnt and mkdir root. If you have scsi, then it is
>> sda1.
>>
>> 3) run the command mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/root, and then cd to /mnt/root to
>> see what you have... Hopefully you will see etc, bin, usr, and so on.
>>
>> 4) cd to /mnt/root/etc (or from /mnt/root, just etc) and see what is
>> there... You should see a lilo.conf file there. If so, then from that
>> directory run /mnt/root/usr/bin/pico lilo.conf, which should open your
>> lilo.conf file. If that craps out,
>> try /mnt/root/usr/bin/pico /mnt/root/etc/lilo.conf. Edit the lilo.conf
>> file by placing a # on the line that has the current vga setting, and
>> un-#
>> the line that says vga=ask. If you don't see vga=ask, insert it with the
>> other vga= lines, but make sure that it is the only uncommented vga=
>> line.
>>
>> 5) cd to /mnt and umount root.
>>
>> 6) If you have more than one partition, you will need to mount the
>> partitons containing /etc and /usr/bin so that you can 1) see lilo.conf
>> and
>> 3) run pico (or whatever quick and dirty command line editor you like)
>>
>> 7) reboot and remove the slackware CD. Hopefully you will get to
>> the 'select the font' or whatever it says, and after that it will boot.
>>
>> HTH.
>>
>> John.
>
> Oh! and before you reboot, be sure to run lilo to make the changes in
> lilo.conf effective. Lilo is in /sbin, so that will need to be mounted as
> well. If you just have one partition, it will be no problem. If not, you
> will need to mount it.
>
> John.

And as these others are saying or hinting at, you will need to run lilo in a
chroot jail... which I just did by running chroot /mnt/root. Heh! If you
are on just one partition, that will make things easy for you.

John.