L 99 99 99 ....

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Username : Date : Action : Comments [ close all ]
DaisyDog27 : 09/11/02 04:54 PM : Incident created -   I just installed Mandrake Linux 9.0 and everything went well. After the installation completed and the machine re-booted I got the posting messages which concluded with L 99 99 99 99...... This goes on for about half a screen, then stops, and the computer freezes. There is no other OS on the machine. I have tried various bios settings, but nothing makes any difference. I also tried re-installing Linux, but the same problem arose. Can someone help me? Hardware is - AMD k6/500, 15GB Maxtor, 224MB RAM, SB Live, DFI MB (K6BV3 ) with VIA chipset, Startech 10/100 NIC (on home network), Matrox G200 Mystique (16MB) video, 2 button serial mouse, standard keyboard.
pieleric : 09/11/02 09:45 PM : Reply received -   The 'L' means that lilo succeded in the first stage boot loading. The 99's means there is a 'transcient disk problem' (quoting the lilo documentation). It is said that this is not so good if lilo stops but it is not written how to solve that :-( Maybe the best idea would be to try grub instead of lilo when you are asked which boot loader you want. Hopefully this will work. Else you can also try to make a rescue floppy and see if it works better (well, actually, I think it's hard to work worse ;-) ) Eric If this solved your problem do not forget to close your incident :-)
jimdunn_6089 : 10/11/02 12:49 PM : Reply received -   Hello Just a thought... When the installer asks you where you want to put the bootloader, you have to select - Master Boot Record, which in your case would be /dev/hda (assuming you boot from the Master drive on IDE channel 1) (most people do) The line in /etc/lilo.conf must read boot=/dev/hda and not anything else ending in a digit. If you have to edit /etc/lilo.conf don't forget to run /sbin/lilo as root afterwards.
DaisyDog27 : 11/11/02 05:36 PM : Incident closed -   The comments provided were a valuable clue in finding and rectifying the problem. There was, indeed, a disk problem. The hard drive had Win XP installed on it at some point previously and, even though Linux reformatted the drive, it wasn't restored to original condition. I ended up doing a low level format then re-installing Linux. All is well now. Thank you for your suggestions.

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