[plug] lilo error message 0x40 and BIOS data check successful

[Clare Johnstone]

Dear Plug,

Using lilo 22.7.1  on a machine about 5 years old I think,  its BIOS is
an Award dated 1984-2000. the disk I am booting is a Hitachi cheapie
about 2 years old 80G size.

Lilo often stops with an error 0x40 and needs a retry, one or two retries get me
to the point where it says "BIOS data check successful" which is what it
normally says anyway.

So my question is where does the message "BIOS data check successful" come from?
I can't (due to poor c skills ?) find it in lilo source.

The original error the advice from lilo is:
0x40   "Seek failure". This might be a media problem. Try booting again.
Has anyone had this and found it got steadily or suddenly worse?

thanks
clare johnstone