Author: Steve Borho
Email: steve@meridian.com
Web Page: http://www.meridian.com
Date Submitted: Wed, Apr 29, 1998
Status: New Entry

Requester: nate
Email: nmalcho@globalbiz.net
Web Page: http://www.
Request Made: Mon, Feb 2, 1998

Releases: all
Platform: Intel
Category:  Booting & LILO
Category Listing:  It wont boot it just comes up with LI and stops

Issue

I try to boot linux and all I get is LI and a lot of beeping or 
just LI. 

Response

The problem is that for whatever reason LILO cannot find your 
kernel. It is usually caused by recompiling the kernel and 
copying the new one over the old and forgetting to re-run lilo. 
Remember, the program /sbin/lilo is not what actually boots your 
computer. /sbin/lilo mearly reads /etc/lilo.conf and writes a new boot 
sector onto your drive. Every time your kernel moves on your 
hard-drive, you need to rerun lilo to update that boot sector. If 
you forgot, and you get the dreaded "LI..." lockup, you must boot with 
the RedHat install/rescue floppy and mount the root directory and 
re-run lilo using a command like "lilo -r /mnt". To avoid this problem, 
and the eventual MBR corruption that occurs when installing a 
Microsoft operating system, you should make an emergency LILO 
boot floppy for every machine you dual-boot. Simply insert an 
unused floppy into drive A: and run (as root) lilo -b /dev/fd0. This 
will make an exact copy of your hard-drive boot sector onto that 
floppy so that the next time something kills your boot record, 
just insert that floppy and boot from it. When you get your login 
prompt again, just login as root and run lilo to recreate a valid 
master boot record on the hard-drive. 

References

(none)