LILO mini-HOWTO

5. Using Lilo When the BIOS Can't See the Root Partition

I have two IDE drives, and a SCSI drive. The SCSI drive can't be seen from BIOS. The Linux Loader, Lilo, uses BIOS calls and can only see drives that BIOS can see. My stupid AMI BIOS will only boot from "A:" or "C:" My root file system is on a partition on the SCSI drive.

The solution consists in storing the kernel, map file, and chain loader in a Linux partition on the first IDE. Notice that it is not necessary to keep your kernel on your root partition.

The second partition on my first IDE (/dev/hda2, the Linux partition used to boot the system) is mounted on /u2. Here is the /etc/lilo.conf file I used.

#  Install Lilo on the Master Boot Record
#  on the first IDE.
#
boot = /dev/hda
#  /sbin/lilo (the installer) copies the Lilo boot record
#  from the following file to the MBR location.
install = /u2/etc/lilo/boot.b
#
#  I wrote a verbose boot menu.  Lilo finds it here.
message = /u2/etc/lilo/message
#  The installer will build the following file. It tells
#  the boot-loader where the blocks of the kernels are.
map = /u2/etc/lilo/map
compact
prompt
#  Wait 10 seconds, then boot the 1.2.1 kernel by default.
timeout = 100
#  The kernel is stored where BIOS can see it by doing this:
#      cp -p /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/zImage /u2/z1.2.1
image = /u2/z1.2.1
        label = 1.2.1
#  Lilo tells the kernel to mount the first SCSI partition
#  as root.  BIOS does not have to be able to see it.
        root = /dev/sda1
#  This partition will be checked and remounted by /etc/rc.d/rc.S
        read-only
#  I kept an old Slackware kernel lying around in case I built a
#  kernel that doesn't work.  I actually needed this once.
image = /u2/z1.0.9
        label = 1.0.9
        root = /dev/sda1
        read-only
#  My DR-DOS 6 partition.
other = /dev/hda1
        loader=/u2/etc/lilo/chain.b
        label = dos
        alias = m