[SWLUG] Mandriva 2007 problems, Ubuntu and Dual Boot

[Edward Evans]

On Wed, 22 Nov 2006 21:18:03 +0000
"Neil Greenwood" <neil.greenwood.lug at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 22/11/06, Marcus Davage <marcus.davage at googlemail.com> wrote:
> > [snip]
> >
> > Anyway, I installed Ubuntu 6.0.6 from a magazine DVD onto a spare
> > partition (/dev/hdb7 mounted as /ubuntu in Mandriva). [snip]
> > I went in to Mandriva, reinstalled lilo, and hey presto,
> > Windows is now my default. But I have now lost access to boot into
> > Ubuntu!
> >
> > My Ubuntu vmlinuz and initrd files are still there on /ubuntu, but
> > how do I boot into them? What do I put into my lilo.conf?
> 
> Hi Marcus,
> 
> If you look in lilo.conf, you will find entries for Windows (probably
> on /dev/hda1) and Mandriva. You don't say what partition Mandriva is
> on, but it will have a label you recognise.
> 
> I can't remember the exact format of lilo.conf (I'm using Ubuntu 6.06
> with Grub, as you found out!), but you can copy the Mandriva entries
> and change the label and partition to re-enable Ubuntu.
> 
> After you've changed lilo.conf, you have to run a command (/sbin/lilo?
> I could be wrong here, but the manual page for lilo.conf should tell
> you what to do) to update the files in the MBR (in case you don't
> know, that's the Master Boot Record, the bit of the disk that lilo and
> Grub were fighting over earlier).
> 
> Just in case you don't know how to view the manual pages, open a
> terminal and type "man <command>", replacing <command> with the
> command - or even config file - that you are interested in. E.g. to
> see details about the format of lilo.conf, type "man lilo.conf".

Marcus

Perhaps I am a bit late commenting on this, but I think I remember that
there is another complication.  When you run lilo (if you are logged in
as root, as you need to be, it will be in your path) the Ubuntu kernel
must be readable, so you need to mount the Ubuntu partition with the
/boot directory on first.  You don't need the root partition of
Ubuntu mounted but there is no harm if it is.

If you are still stuck, email me off list and I will try and help
although it's a little while since I used lilo, so I am a bit rusty.

Edward