I would like to install LiLo on a Floppy. Does anyone know how to do this? My MBR is obviously messed up and I can't boot in to my Win Xp partition. LiLo gives me a L 02 02 02 02 02 02 error so I would like to put it on a floppy so I can boot either system. Is that possible? If so can someone tell me (in detail) how to do this?

Thanks

Has this install ever booted properly before? Did you change anything in the /etc/lilo.conf file ... or upgrade a kernel ... or install a new OS?

Normally, it isn't LILO that is messed up, but the configuration....but it can usually be fixed

In order to tell you how to boot, I need to know where your root partition is (normally hda1, hda2 or hda3) ... then you can normally boot from your Distro's install disk in rescue mode, edit the /etc/lilo.conf file, run the command /sbin/lilo and be back in business...

No, i've never been able to ever get it to boot since install. Windows was booting fine till LiLo wrote to the MBR.

Here is what my current lilo.conf file says:

boot=/dev/hdb
map=/boot/map
vga=normal
default="linux"
keytable=/boot/us.klt
compact
prompt
nowarn
timeout=100
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
disk=/dev/hdb bios=0x80
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux"
root=/dev/hdb5
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="quiet devfs=mount hdd=ide-scsi acpi=off"
vga=788
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux-nonfb"
root=/dev/hdb5
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="devfs=mount hdd=ide-scsi acpi=off"
read-only
other=/dev/hdc1
label="windows"
table=/dev/hdc
map-drive=0x80
to=0x81
map-drive=0x81
to=0x80
other=/dev/hdc1
label="windows2"
table=/dev/hdc
map-drive=0x80
to=0x81
map-drive=0x81
to=0x80
other=/dev/fd0
label="floppy"
unsafe
image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.21-0.13mdk
label="TVout"
root=/dev/hdb5
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.21-0.13mdk.img
append="quiet XFree=tvout devfs=mount hdd=ide-scsi acpi=off"
vga=788
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.21-0.13mdk
label="old_linux"
root=/dev/hdb5
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.21-0.13mdk.img
append="quiet devfs=mount hdd=ide-scsi acpi=off"
vga=788
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="failsafe"
root=/dev/hdb5
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="failsafe devfs=nomount hdd=ide-scsi acpi=off"
read-only
other=/dev/hdb1
label="old_windows"
table=/dev/hdb
map-drive=0x80
to=0x81
map-drive=0x81
to=0x80

According to your lilo.conf, your root linux partition is root=/dev/hdb5 and your windows boot is /dev/hdc1 ... this may be true, but it is strange that you don't have /dev/hda listed.

The way IDE drives are named in Linux is as follows:

/dev/hda - Primary IDE Channel - Master (drive 0)
/dev/hdb - Primary IDE Channel - Slave (drive 1)
/dev/hdc - Secondary IDE Channel - Master (drive 3)
/dev/hdd - Secondary IDE Channel - Slave (drive 4)

So it seems that you are booting off your Primary slave (Linux) and running Windows from your Secondary Master.

There are lots of PCs that don't boot properly from a hard drive except the PRIMARY MASTER ... is your CD (or DVD) hooked up as the primary channel master ... or is there another hard drive there?