Solved boot problem by disabling overlay manager

[Richard Dybowski <rdybowski btinternet com>]

Yesterday I posted a problem to this list regarding a failure of LILO to 
complete the boot sequence. For example, the sequence would only go as far 
as displaying

LILO boot:
Loading linux .................
Uncompressing Linux ...

This is symptomatic of the /boot partition *not* being entirely located 
below cylinder 1023, and the problem occurred when Linux was installed on a 
4 GB Quantum Fireball SE4.3A hard disk with a Quantum Dynamic Overlay 
Manager (v 9.03). According to the BIOS setup, the true disk geometry is 
[14848/9/63] (i.e. 14848 cylinders, 9 heads, 63 sectors per track) but, 
according to Disk Druid, the overlay manager resulted in the virtual disk 
geometry [524/255/63]. The boot problem occurred even when a 15 MB /boot 
partition was located at hda1 (with LILO installed in the MBR). I solved 
the problem by first deleting all partitions using fdisk whilst the overlay 
manager was engaged, and then disabling the overlay manager itself. A new 
partition was created using fdisk and the partition configuration completed 
with Disk Druid in the usual manner, with a 15 MB /boot partition at hda1. 
Within Disk Druid, the apparent disk geometry now comes out as 
[1044/128/63], but I assume that this is due to the fact that the BIOS is 
set for LBA mode.

Has anyone managed to run Linux in the presence of an overlay manager?

Richard

-------------------------------
Richard Dybowski PhD
Research Fellow (Knowledge & Data Engineering)
King's College London
Medical Informatics Laboratory (Division of Medicine)
4th Floor
North Wing
St Thomas' Hospital
Lambeth Palace Road
London SE1 7EH
UK

Tel (office): (0)20 7928 9292 extension 6429
Tel (mobile): 079 76 25 00 92
Fax: +44 (0)20 7928 4458
E-mail: richard dybowski kcl ac uk
Web site: http://www.umds.ac.uk/microbio/richard/richard.htm

{Note: Currently using e-mail address rdybowski btinternet com whilst link 
to Internet is being established in my new office at St Thomas' Hospital}