Restoring Lilo

If you ever want to install Windows XP on a partition next to your linux installation be aware of the fact that it will overwrite your bootloader. No big problem as long you have a rescue disk or e.g. a knoppix cd at hand. All you have to do is to chroot and call lilo again.


> mount -o dev /dev/hda5 /mnt/hda5; chroot /mnt/hda5
> vi /etc/lilo.conf # fix if needed
> lilo

5. April 2004 | linux

michael

apparently, you don't. If anyone else stumbles across this, fixing the NTLDR is challenging. I opted for a file backup and reinstall. Make a backup copy of your mbr before you install lilo, just to be safe. Do that like so:

dd if=/dev/hda of=/home/you/mbrbackup bs=512 count=1

(restoring this would be the reverse, ie:

dd if=/home/you/mbrbackup of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1 )

If you have both XP and linux partitions within the first 8 GB of your hdd, booting both from lilo should be a snap. Install XP first, then linux. DONT LET your installer put lilo on the mbr! make sure it does

lilo /dev/hda2

or appropriate partition, rather than hda, or youll have a helluva time getting XP to boot. It should pick up XP and NTLDR and make a menu entry for it automagically.
michael

I'd be fascinated to know how you got XP to boot after doing this, ie, how you boot XP from lilo?

Torsten Curdt’s weblog

Restoring Lilo