I don't remember the specific meaning of lilo stopping at LI either but as mentioned it is explained in the LILO HOWTO.
Answering (at least partially) the question that I think that you are asking... You probably DO NOT need to reinstall. The problem is likely just a lilo configuration problem and should be correctable without starting all over again. One potential proplem however is that your hard disk is 'created' in a CMOS 'normal' mode when it should have been a LBA or 'linear' mode. Do read the LILO documentation, it will be well worth the time invested. A not very detailed explanation of what you need to do is: Boot your Linux system from floppy. If you use the rescue/installation disk then answer the first couple of questions (color console, keyboard) and then hit alt-F2 to go to the extra console. type 'mount -t ext2 /dev/hda2 /target' (substituting whatever is the correct location for your linux root partition where I have '/dev/hda2') edit (or at least check) the text file /target/etc/lilo.conf. run lilo by typing 'lilo -r /target' Unless told otherwise, lilo assume that its' configuration file is /etc/lilo.conf and that the location for lilo's working files is /boot (which is not the case if you boot from a kernel that uses a ram filesystem or some other partition as the root filesystem). I do not know if lilo's options can get you 'around' the problem where the drive's structure does not match 'normal mode' or 'LBA mode'. Lilo does have an option switch '-l' which says 'generate linear mode addresses' and '-P fix|ignore' which tells lilo to fix or ignore a fouled up structure (ie: translation of head/sector does not yield the correct LBA). -- best, -bill [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] from a 1996 Micro$loth ad campaign: "The less you know about computers the more you want Micro$oft!" See! They do get some things right! -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .