[225] in winnt
Re: NT BIOS
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Maurice van Putten)
Mon Sep 21 13:56:31 1998
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 1998 13:56:26 -0400 (EDT)
From: Maurice van Putten <mvp@math.mit.edu>
To: "Theodore Y. Ts'o" <tytso@MIT.EDU>
Cc: ntpartners@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <199809211724.NAA00405@dcl.MIT.EDU>
Hi Theodore,
Thanks for your explanation. However, in my ignorance, I reformated
(cleaned) both partitions, and so any backup by LINUX has been erased.
What's next in this case?
Thanks,
Maurice.
On Mon, 21 Sep 1998, Theodore Y. Ts'o wrote:
> From: Maurice van Putten <mvp@math.mit.edu>
> Date: Sun, 20 Sep 1998 13:50:01 -0400 (EDT)
>
> I would like to sollicit support in repairing an NT BIOS on a Dell
> notebook. It was destroyed during a Linux installation. Please, let
> me know.
>
> ??? NT BIOS? What do you mean by that?
>
> A common problem with NT and installing Linux is that NT is extremely
> persnickety about the contents of the boot block. It cares about more
> than just the partition table. Hence, installing LILO on the Master
> Boot Record will not work. If you do this, and then you try to boot NT
> from LILO, NT will blue-screen with a message about unaccessible boot
> device.
>
> Instead, what you have to do is install LILO on the boot blocks of its
> partition, and then set its primary partition to be bootable.
>
> So for example, if NT installed on the first partition (/dev/hda1), and
> Linux is installed on the second partition (/dev/hda2), you'll want to
> install LILO so that it is installed on /dev/hda2, and then use fdisk to
> make /dev/hda2 the bootable partition.
>
> If this is in fact your problem, fortunately LILO backs up a copy of the
> boot block before it replaces it. So there should be a backed up copy
> of your MBR in /boot/boot.0300. You can use the dd command to restore
> it, and then edit the /etc/lilo.conf file so that it installs the LILO
> boot block in /dev/hda2 (or wherever the Linux root partition happens to
> be).
>
> If you need more details on the exact Linux commands to type, let me
> know....
>
> - Ted
>
