LILO Wont't Install With XFS File Format

[Martin Dintzis]

I have Win XP on my primary hard drive, but I installed Debian 4.0 on a second internal hard drive. I selected the XFS file format.

I wanted the setup program to put GRUB on the MBR of the primary drive. The Debian install program recommended LILO over Grub. It seemed to have installed LILO, but I can't get any boot menu. Win XP just loads normally.

Anybody understand what went wrong? I've made 3 install attempts already.

[Dapper Dan]

I ran into the same problem although I wasn't booting Windows. It was installing on a box that had another Linux OS. I finally had to use ReiserFS instead. Sorry I couldn't help.

[devils casper]

Hi and Welcome !

Its Lilo/BIOS compatibility problem and you will face similar problem with GRUB too.
Un-plug Windows HD and plug-in Debian HD as Primary and re-install Debian. Select GRUB instead of Lilo. Its very easy to configure/tweak GRUB.
Debian will boot up fine after installation. Keep it plugged in as Primary only and plug-in Windows HD as Secondary. Debian will boot up by default. Open Terminal/Konsole and execute this

su -
fdisk -l

Post output here. We'll post code for dual boot setup. You will have to edit one file only.

[Martin Dintzis]

My PC has a brand-new nVidia n-Force 650i motherboard, which allows me to select the primary hard drive with a single Bios setting. I am operating the hard drives in SATA Legacy mode, which makes them compatible with older operating systems such as Win98 SE. I think (hope) that this is the safest configuration. (The Native Mode is for WinXP only---I think.) Are you telling me that all I need to do is to redefine the primary drive in Bios?

If I change the primary hard drive from Disk 0 (Win XP) to Disk 1 (Debian), what will happen to the MBR on Disk 0? There can be only one master boot record, right? Will the current WinXP MBR get deleted? If Yes, then Windows is dependent upon Disk 1 for boot capability.

Could I use SuperGrub Disk to recreate the WinXP MBR at a later time? If not, then I am in trouble.

The only reason that I wanted XFS is that I want a defrag option. That leaves either Ext2 or XFS---at least until Reiser4 comes out.

[HROAdmin26]

ReiserFS 4 may never come to fruition...

1. Yes, Casper is suggesting you change the boot order so that the Linux HDD is booted from first.

2. Native SATA is for any OS that has a driver for it. You'll see better performance in native mode. No, you probably won't find a Win98 driver for your SATA controller.

3. There is only one MBR per HDD. Changing the boot order in BIOS will not change the MBR on either HDD. If you change the boot order back, the MBR on the Windows HDD will load and Windows will boot.

4. *Nix filesystems don't fragment the way that FAT/NTFS filesystem fragment easily. It's very unlikely that (under a single-user load), your filesystem will ever be fragmented enough to warrant a defrag. If fragmentation were an issue, you'd see more *Nix filesystems that support it. My own suggestion/testing/experience is that I use ReiserFS (3.6) for OS/smaller files and XFS for volumes with bigger files (300-500MB+ files.)

HTH.

[Martin Dintzis]

I swapped disks, tried once again, and the install program froze right after it had finished gathering updates from the ftp.debian.org mirror. I have given up an XFS.

I suppose that If I had installed it on my primary hard drive, creating a traditional dual-boot disk, it would work. What do you think?

[devils casper]

I dont think its XFS problem. Are you sure that Internet Connection was working fine?

Well, try ext3 filesystem and do let know after installation.

[Martin Dintzis]

Ext-3 installed fine.

The install program froze just after the PC had downloaded all updates from the ftp.debian.org mirror. It then should have proceeded to install the downloaded files.

I did not get this problem with Ext3.