Can Linux Boot from MS-DOS?
If LILO doesn't work, and if the machine has MS-DOS or MicrosoftWindows, you may be left with a computer that won't boot. This can
also happen on an upgrade to your Linux distribution. Re-installing
LILO is the last thing that the installation does. So it is vitally
important when installing or upgrading Linux on a dual boot machine,
to have a MS-DOS or Windows rescue disk nearby so you can FDISK -MBR.
Then you can go about using LOADLIN.EXE instead of LILO.
This config.sys file is one possible way to invoke LOADLIN.EXE and
boot MS-DOS or Linux.
[menu]
menuitem=DOS, Dos Boot
menuitem=LINUX, Linux Boot
[LINUX]
shell=c:\redhat\loadlin.exe c:\redhat\autoboot\vmlinuz vga=5 root=/dev
[DOS]
STACKS = 0,0
rem all the other DOS drivers get loaded here.
This creates a menu where you can directly jump to LOADLIN.EXE before
all of the MS-DOS drivers get loaded.
The paths and options are peculiar to one machine and should be
intuitively obvious to the most casual observer. See the LOADLIN.EXE
docs for options. They are the same as LILO, and options are just
passed to the kernel, anyhow.
[Jim Harvey]
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