Lilo Error Code 99?, what does it mean? Options

[The Warlock]

What does error code 99 mean? When I try to boot, I end up with

L 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99
99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99
99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99
99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99
99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99
99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99
99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99

What do I do?

EDIT: Okay, this is apparently an "invalid second stage index sector" I don't know what this means. I don't know what to do. I have two hard drives; WinXP is on hda and Linux Mandrake is on hdb3 (/) and hdb4 (swapfile). How do I fix this?

[Joey]

http://www.linuxhelp.ca/forums/index.php?a...t=ST&f=7&t=1438

[The Warlock]

http://www.linuxhelp.ca/forums/index.php?a...t=ST&f=7&t=1438

Maybe I'm missing something, but code 99 (and 9A for that matter) are not listed in that thread. I looked there before posting.

[hughesjr]

From catfive.org

BOOT ERRORS
The boot process takes place in two stages. The first stage loader is
a single sector, and is loaded by the BIOS or by the loader in the MBR.
It loads the multi-sector second stage loader, but is very space lim-
ited. When the first stage loader gets control, it types the letter
"L"; when it is ready to transfer control to the second stage loader it
types the letter "I". If any error occurs, like a disk read error, it
will put out a hexadecimil error code, and then it will re-try the
operation. All hex error codes are BIOS return values, except for the
lilo-generated 40, 99 and 9A. A partial list of error codes follows:

00 no error
01 invalid disk command
0A bad sector flag
0B bad track flag
20 controller failure
40 seek failure (BIOS)
40 cylinder>1023 (LILO)
99 invalid second stage index sector (LILO)
9A no second stage loader signature (LILO)
AA drive not ready
FF sense operation failed

Error code 40 is generated by the BIOS, or by LILO during the conver-
sion of a linear (24-bit) disk address to a geometric (C:H:S) address.
On older systems which do not support lba32 (32-bit) addressing, this
error may also be generated. Errors 99 and 9A usually mean the map
file (-m or map=) is not readable, likely because LILO was not re-run
after some system change, or there is a geometry mis-match between what
LILO used (lilo -v3 to display) and what is actually being used by the
BIOS one of the lilo diagnostic disks, available in the source distri-
bution, may be needed to diagnose this problem).

When the second stage loader has received control from the first stage,
it prints the letter "L", and when it has initialized itself, including
verifying the "Descriptor Table" - the list of kernels/others to boot -
it will print the letter "O", to form the full word "LILO", in upper-
case.

All second stage loader error messages are English text, and try to
pinpoint, more or less successfully, the point of failure.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So, it seems that the most likely cause is that lilo.conf was changed, but /sbin/lilo wasn't run. (or a kernel update was downloaded and installed but /sbin/lilo wasn't run)....

HERE'S HOW TO FIX IT !!!!!!!!!!!!!

You can boot from your Mandrake CD1 ...

press the F1 key for more options on the first screen

type rescue followed by the Enter key

select the option Mount your Partitons under mnt, thne go back to the GUI
(your root partition should now be mounted under the directory /mnt)

select the go to console option.

At the command prompt, type cd /mnt to look at what should be your root directory. Do an ls from within the /mnt directory. If it is your root (i.e., it has the following directories boot, bin, etc, usr, root, home, etc...) then do the command cd /mnt/boot and do an ls. If the directory /mnt/boot contains your kernel files (files like vmlinux-2.4.22-mdk10, System.map-2.4.22-mdk10, config-2.4.22-mdk10, etc.) then your partitions were mounted correctly....do the command cd /.

[If, for whatever the reason, your /mnt is not your root or /mnt/boot is not your normal boot directory, you will need to mount the proper partitons manually ... but I haven't ever had to do this with a mandrake install...]

Now you are ready to change the root directory of the recovery to your actual root directory...to do this we will use the chroot command. The chroot command is very cool, you can boot from one kernel and then change to a whole new root filesystem...good stuff if you need to recover your OS!...

[Before we use the chroot command, make sure you are in the / directory (you should be...that's where we left off above...type the command pwd ... if it doesn't say /, do the command cd /]

Type the command chroot /mnt /bin/bash

You should now be in your normal root directory ... type the command:

/sbin/lilo

And see if there are any errors...of if everything is made OK.

If everthing looks OK, type exit to exit form the chroot, then type exit again ... you should see the console picture (a penguin)...then type the command reboot and remove your cd to boot from your normal kernel...
---------------------------------

[The Warlock]

Okay, I tried what you told me. Everything went smoothly; there were no errors, the partitions mounted okay, everyhting went fine. Then, when I rebooted the computer, there was no change. It still gave me the 99 error.

Is it because my bootloader is on hda but my linux partitions are on hdb?

[hughesjr]

It shouldn't make any difference.

Is the bootloader on hda LILO or some other bootloader (like partition magic or WinXP)?

Is this a dual boot machine and did you write the bootloader to hda mbr or to hdb?

[The Warlock]

It shouldn't make any difference.

Is the bootloader on hda LILO or some other bootloader (like partition magic or WinXP)?

Is this a dual boot machine and did you write the bootloader to hda mbr or to hdb?

The bootloader is LiLo on hda. I am trying to dual-boot with windows XP (on hda), but am using LiLo instead of the XP booter because when I tried to use the XP boot loader to boot Mandrake (with bootpart) it wouldn't work. I wrote the bootloader to hda's mbr.

[hughesjr]

Boot back to the Console on the mandrake cd and do the command:

fdisk /dev/hda

You can press m to look at the commands...then do p to print the current partition table..

If there is a * beside hda1, use the command a to toggle the bootable flag and pick partition 1, then print the table again (p command and make sure hda1 is not bootable. Use the command w to exit fdisk ... (don't reboot now! ... we will rewrite the mbr next!).

Now go back open fdisk again (fdisk /dev/hda) and use the a command to write the mbr ... and pick partition 1 ... now use the p command, hda1 shold be marked as bootable (have a * in the bootable column). Use the w command to write the disk information and then reboot.