lilo: "not the first disk"

[Jim Thompson]

>>>>> "Harvey" == Harvey Fishman <fishman at panix.com> writes:

    Harvey> On Tue, 8 Sep 1998, Jim Thompson wrote:

    >> >> Finally after the installation, I had the problem to make lilo
    >> >> use the MBR of the /dev/sda, it kept telling "not the first >>
    >> disk",

    Harvey> This is not a LILO problem at all, but a planar BIOS one.

Thanks for the explanation, but I don't think you understand the
problem.  It's not a problem booting, but a problem using lilo to
install the boot record.  My system will boot off the SCSI disk just
fine, even with the IDE drive present.  The BIOS can be told whether to
boot SCSI-first or IDE-first in a mixed system.

The problem occurs in running lilo to write the boot record to the SCSI
drive.  If the IDE disk is enabled, lilo will report "/dev/sda not the
first disk" when in fact it is.  A workaround, but an inconvenient one,
is to disable or unplug the IDE disk, then boot into linux.  With the
IDE drive/controller disabled, lilo will install the boot record without
complaint.  The IDE drive can then be reenabled, and linux will still
boot off the SCSI system just fine.

Lilo seems to assume that if an IDE drive is present, then it *must* be
the boot drive.

Jim
--
     _                                 |
   _| ~-    Jim Thompson               |   Flinging magnetic curses...
   \,  _}   jim.thompson at pobox.com     |
     \(     http://pobox.com/~kzinti   |   int main = 0x0ff0c8c7;

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