Mandrake 9.1 Install Headackes

[Tail_Spin]

Help, ... anyone please!!!
I've been trying to get a working install of 9.1 on my machine all weekend with little success.
I have a 60gig drive with XP pro on it and another removable 40gig drive with 30 gig as win 98 and I wanted to install the remaining 10 gig with Linux 9.1.
It went through the whole install ok and rebooted to the LILO ok the first time and booted Linux properly. But I can't use the LILO because when I remove the 40 gig drive and only try and use the 60gig, it won't load XP, so I have to remove the LILO and boot from a floppy. I've done this succesfully before with other versions of Mandrake but I can't get it to work with 9.1 It starts to boot but then comes up with this error:
{ mounting root filesystem
VFS: Can't find ext3 filesystem on dev ide0(3,65).
mount: error 22 mounting ext3 flags Mounted devfs
on /dev
Freeing unused kernel memory: 136k freed
Kernel panic: No init found. Try passing init= option to
kernel.
}
So I've tried to use:
" Boot: Linux init=/dev/hdb5 "
hdb5 is were my linux root is on the second drive.
But this doesn't fix the problem. So can anyone helpl me with this problem? I'm going crazy here.


At the boot: prompt I've been using "It starts to boot and then comes up with this error

[SkyNet]

Okay, from what you're telling me, it looks like you've removed the drive with Linux on it, and are now trying to boot it. That doesn't make any sense.

If you keep all the drives in the PC, then LiLo should boot the Linux drive just fine. BTW did you install LiLo into the 40 GB drive, or the 60 GB drive? Which one is hda, hdb, etc..?

[Tail_Spin]

;D Sheeesh.... Finally got it!!!
Thanks for the responses guys and sorry for the poor explanation of the problem, (was in a rush and get’n pestered by about 3 people at the time, lol)

For those who are still curious, I’ll try to make it a little clearer just incase someone is having the same problem that I had.

- I have windows XP pro installed on my internal 60 gig drive.
- I have windows ’98 installed on 30 gigs of my removable 40 gig drive
(partition 1).
- I have Mandrake 9.1 installed on the remaining 10 gigs of the 40 gig
removable drive {partitions: 5 (root), 6 (swap), 7 (home)}.

When my computer boots, the bios scans the drives and comes up with a list of my bootable devices: 60 gig, 40gig, CD rom, CD writer, floppy.

The removable drive bay gets different drives in it from time to time, sometimes no drive at all. Therefore the LILO can’t reside on the 60gig because it crashes when there is no drive in the removable drive bay or the drive bay contains a non-linux disk.

What I finally did to get around this was:

1) Installed Linux on the remainder of the removable drive as normal,
but I told the installation to put the LILO boot loader on hdb
(‘98/Linux drive) instead of hda (XP only). However, it installed it on
both drives anyways, lol.
2) Then, did an fdisk /mbr on the 60 gig drive, … now my XP boots as
normal. My Linux on hdb boots fine using the LILO however, the ’98
on hdb didn’t boot properly. >
3) To fix this problem, I disconnected the 60gig drive and made the 40
gig the master. Then did a fdisk /mbr to the 40 gig (‘98/Linux) drive.
Then reconnected things back up again.
4) Then booted Linux with a floppy and that worked great. Now my XP
boots as normal whether there is a drive installed in the removable
bay or not, my ’98 on the second drive boots properly, and my Linux
boots from floppy when the drive is installed. ;D

[sujoki]

install headaches.... wait till you start trying to learn linux from mandrake =P

[johnqpublic]

I have had probs like that! That's why I use a third party boot manager. Always have as I hate to install LiLo to the MBR and hate using boot floppies. 8)

[sujoki]

why not have hda being xp take up 50, linux take up 10 on hda, and set partitions for the other drive, so hdb can be like 20 20 and the second 20 can be like a backup type thing where you keep important files like drivers and such, quite usefull this way and then linux wont disapear.