Lilo's giving me guff

[iago]

When I try booting, I get the message "LIL" on the screen.  I looked it up, and it means this:

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.

I think that might mean my harddrive is FUBAR, but I'm not 100% sure.  Can somebody give me any more info on this?

[Maddox]

What is your partitioning set up?

[iago]

It means you have a LIL pee pee.

You were a lot more help on aim

(23:53:40) Ron: Ok, I'll swap in a harddrive from my other computer
(23:53:50) Ron: and smash thing one against a tree

I figure that'll work.

And if it doesn't, I'm blaming cefx because he's my tech support.

[muert0]

    

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4.1.2 LILO displays only LI (or LIL) and hangs

   I quote from my good handbook "Red Hat Linux Unleashed" by Kamran Hussain, Timothy Parker, et al., published by SAMS Publishing:

   "When LILO loads itself, it displays the word LILO. Each letter is printed before or after performing some specific action. If LILO fails at some point, the letters printed so far can be used to identify the problem. [...]

   LI [...] This is caused either by geometry mismatch or by moving /etc/lilo/boot.b without running the map installer.

   LIL [...] This is typically caused by media failure or geometry mismatch."

   The geometry means the number of sectors/heads/cylinders used in the hard drive configuration of your BIOS. Hope this helps!

   It is a very good idea to have a handbook for Linux or at least a general UNIX handbook. Handbooks for Windows are useless, handbooks for Linux are great!  "Red Hat Linux Unleashed" is a very good handbook but I am sure there are many other equally good ones.

   With a LILO error like above, you can boot your machine using a Linux or DOS boot floppy. There seems to be several general possibilities to correct such a LILO error, depending on what is wrong:

   1. If LILO simply got corrupted (does not seem very common), you can remove and re-install it. You can remove LILO by running under Linux:
   lilo -u /dev/hda

   or, under DOS:
   FDISK/MBR

   which rewrites the hard drive master boot record (MBR), in which LILO resides, and replaces it with "clean" DOS stuff. You will lose access to Linux if you rebooted your computer after removing LILO (if this happened, you can boot Linux from the floppy and re-install LILO on top of the DOS MBR).

   To re-install LILO, simply re-run the command lilo (as root).

   2. Specify the option
   linear

   at the top of your /etc/lilo.conf file. This is particularly useful for large drives (>8 GB). See man lilo.conf for details. The option "linear" is safe--it should not affect a properly working system, so you can specify this option is any case.

   You may also want to play with the method by which BIOS accesses your harddrive. Fore example, turn the LBA ("linear or large block access") mode on/off in your BIOS to see if this helps.

   Instead of the option "linear" you may try specifying the option (helpful to overcome the 1024 cylinder limit with larger harddrives and newer BIOSes):
   lba32

   This is a new option so it won't work with the stock LILO supplied with RH6.1 or lower. Use the latest Mandrake or RedHat if having the "LI" kind of problems--hard drives are bigger and bigger, and BIOS makers put new tricks to support them.

   3. Look into your BIOS setup and figure out how the specified hard drive geometry does not match your hard drive. From under Linux, you can display the hard drive geometry using (for example, for the first IDE hard drive):
   hdparm -g  /dev/hda

   You can typically easily find the recommended manufacturer geometry on the web using Google to search for your harddrive model number.

   
   4. Put LILO on another partition (different hard drive) and, using fdisk, make this partition bootable (if your system supports booting from another drive). Or swap your harddrives so that the one that is better supported by your old BIOS comes as the first hard drive on your first IDE interface (DOS drive "C").

   5. Maybe you prefer to use "loadlin" instead of "lilo". From under DOS, locate your CDROM and see the program /dosutils/loadlin.exe.  It boots Linux from DOS.

[Adron]

When I try booting, I get the message "LIL" on the screen.  I looked it up, and it means this:

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.

I think that might mean my harddrive is FUBAR, but I'm not 100% sure.  Can somebody give me any more info on this?

If you have changed anything since the last boot from this drive (repartitioned, changed BIOS, changed motherboard, or never successfully booted) it's most likely the geometry problem.

If you have abused the hard drive and it makes weird noises, it's most likely media failure.

If you've defragmented your partition or moved the lilo files around, it's most likely just a need for running lilo again (i.e. the map file has moved somewhere other than it was last time lilo used it)

[iago]

I just formatted the drive, and I have never booted off it before.  It's a fairly old drive, it's the one j0k3r sent me.

What exactly is this "geometry" thing?

[iago]

Also, I can boot off the cd just find, specifying the appropriate root drive.  I was thinking, I can just put LILO on a floppy disk and leave it in the computer.  But I'd like to know what's causing this.

[iago]

I booted off the cd and reinstalled lilo.  Then I rebooted and it worked.  Then I rebooted again and it didn't.  That seems to scream "drive failure" to me.  I can go find if I just use the cd to boot the kernel, so for now I'm going to do that, but work on getting a new hard disk.

[Adron]

What exactly is this "geometry" thing?

heads, cylinders and sectors

If lilo thinks the hard drive has 1000 cylinders, 12 heads and 50 sectors, but the BIOS thinks it has 2000 cylinders, 15 heads and 20 sectors, you may get this error.