topic Re: Executed lilo -u on RH7.2 in Operating System - Linux

Executed lilo -u on RH7.2

Gerald Penyweit — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 00:04:11 GMT

I accidentally executed the
command /sbin/lilo -u. The man
page says the -u option will
"Uninstall lilo, by copying
the saved boot sector back. A
time-stamp is checked. When I
do a /sbin/lilo -t, I get this
message: lilo -t
Added linux_7_2_7_10
Added linux_7_2_9_31
Fatal: No images have been defined.

What have I done to my system,
and is it reparirable? I included
a copy of my /etc/lilo.conf file
as an attachment.

Re: Executed lilo -u on RH7.2

Christopher C. Weis — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 04:42:39 GMT

In lilo.conf, you have "default=linux", but you don't have a label of "linux" set anywhere. I would change the default= paramater to "default=linux_7_2_9_31" or whichever kernel you want to boot with. It's not really all that important because lilo allows you to choose which image you want to boot to at the boot prompt (by typing the key), but lilo will bark at you if the default you've defined doesn't exist.

The man page says that lilo will pick the first image in lilo.conf if a default is not specified. I guess that incorrectly specifying a default image is not the same as not specifying it at all. :-)

Just as an FYI from a fairly experienced admin... make boot disks. I know it's a pain, but it'll save your rear just like it has mine a couple of times now when something like this happens.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

Re: Executed lilo -u on RH7.2

Santosh Nair_1 — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 21:31:58 GMT

If I remember correctly, lilo -u will restore your mbr to its original state, i.e. the state it was in before lilo was installed. You should be able to run lilo -v to re-install lilo into the mbr.

In addition, all of Christopher's comments are valid.

-Santosh