Dual-boot problem

[abers]

Hi,

I have been running a windows ME/ Mandrake Linux dual boot for about two years now but have experienced problems after being forced too reinstall windows (surprise surprise). After reinstallation windows had removed lilo and all I got was a "Disk I/O error; Please replace system disk and press any key". So I used my Linux installation cd to get lilo back and Linux is working fine but if I chose windows I still get the error message and it refuses to load.

Any ideas of what could be wrong?

Thanks in adavance,

Abers
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[Parcival]

Seems like you have to write the correct path of your Windows partition into lilo.conf which should be an easy task.

The Gentoo documentation explains really well how to setup bootloaders, it's also helpful for people running other distros:

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=10#doc_chap3

[saikee]

It is possible that the Windows has not been properly installed and re-installing Lilo would not help. Lilo requires each OS bootable first.

I would suggest to restore Windows MBR first. Failing that do a fresh re-installation of Windows. Only when Windows is working properly (no Linux yet) then I would re-install Lilo.

The Windows MBR can be restored by just pop in a Dos or Windows bootable floppy that has the fdisk.exe in it. On booting up just type fdisk /mbr.

As Parcival quoted web page Lilo only needs 2 lines to boot a Windows

other=/dev/hda1
label=windows

but Lilo command must be re-issued every time if its lilo.conf has been modified. If you use the installation CD then it should do this automatically.

[Hussam]

You should check the right path for your windows parttion and modfy it from the lilo.conf.
Other wise you need to restore rh MBR

[je_fro]

yeah, it will probably need to write to the mbr, so make a lilo boot floppy and pray winsuck doesn't want to claim the whole disk.