[Nottingham] /boot below 2GB (was: Linux not recognized/bootable after installation)

[Joe Wrigley]

Martin,

I am not an expert on this, but I do know that I installed SuSE 8.1 on my
laptop last week, and I have the following setup,

/dev/hda1 roughly 18.5GB (windows XP Home, *vomit)
/dev/hda2 5GBish (SuSE partition reiserfs)
/dev/hda3 5GBish (nothing really atm)
/dev/hda4 188MB (Linux Swap, because SuSE complained, otherwise)

SuSE install GRUB as it's bootloader and it works fine. I believe the latest
version of LILO isn't so bothered either, or you could use GRUB yourself
(I'm sure someone could help, but I can't. Last time I looked I understood
LILO config to some extent and GRUB not at all :)

Hope this helps a little,

Joe
----- Original Message -----
From: "Martin Waryniak" <mxw01u@Cs.Nott.AC.UK>
To: <nottingham@mailman.lug.org.uk>
Sent: Sunday, October 06, 2002 10:14 PM
Subject: Re: [Nottingham] /boot below 2GB (was: Linux not
recognized/bootable after installation)


> Hi Paul,
>
> thanks for your anwer. Partition Magic will let me resize my D:
> partition but I don't know whether i can put the /boot partition aheaqd
> of my primary partition c:.
> Do you know, is the limit now 8GB or still 2GB? If it is 8GB it wont be
> a problem but if it is 2GB, is it possible to place a partiition before
> the primary one if u still want to use Windows?
> Martin
>
> Paul Sladen wrote:
>
> >On Sun, 6 Oct 2002, Martin Waryniak wrote:
> >
> >Hi Martin!
> >
> >
> >
> >>Toshiba Satelite 3000, 390Mb RAM, P3 850Mhz. [...]
> >>
> >>
> >
> >  Mb  == Megabits
> >  MB  == MegaBytes
> >
> >
> >
> >>I installed linux into the partition hda6, with hda5 as swap drive [...]
> >>Should I create a separate /boot partition?
> >>
> >>
> >
> >To do with the history and uselessness of the PC BIOS;  LILO (the Linux
> >bootloader) can only load the kernel from the hard disk if it it can find
it
> >within the first 2GB of the disk (is now this 8GB?).
> >
> >The simplest way to ensure this is the case, is to create a *tiny*
10MB-15MB
> >`/boot' partition right at the front of the disk.  The kernel and second-
> >stage bootloader can then be loaded off this and and jump to the big
> >`/' root partition at the end of the disk.
> >
> >Somebody who's done this more recently will probably give you a better
> >answer.  (Anyone know if can you just get PartitionMagic to lop 20MB off
the
> >front of hda1?, or is it best to use `Loadlin' if you really can't resize
> >the first partition?)  If the limit is now 8GB, just cut 15MB off the
front
> >of `D:' and pop a small `/boot' in there, either has a logical partition
or
> >`hda3'/`hda4'.
> >
> >You should be able to boot by Floppy or CD or Loadlin in the meantime
> >(Windows ME needs a patch to allow you to press Shift-F5 on startup and
get
> >/Real DOS/ though).
> >
> >Hope that helps,
> >
> > -Paul
> >
> >
>
>
>
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