I have a Linux box with three IDE disks. Disk a contains an old Linux
distribution, disk b contains data, and disk c contains a new Linux
distribution. Which distribution gets booted is controlled by a lilo.conf
file on a, with the following contents:

# Start LILO global section
boot = /dev/hda
message = /boot/boot_message.txt
prompt
timeout = 100
reset
# End LILO global section
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /boot/vmlinuz-C
root = /dev/hdc1
label = LinuxC
read-only
image = /boot/vmlinuz-A
root = /dev/hda2
label = LinuxA
read-only
# Linux bootable partition config ends

Under /boot on a I have copies of the two kernel images, vmlinuz-A and
vmlinuz-C, that I want to boot from.

This works fine. However, with the exception of the LILO info, all the
stuff on disk a is now obsolete. What I would like to do is reformat and
repartition disk a, so I can use for other purposes. The question is, how
do I change things so that the LILO information is now in c?

I tried copying the LILO configuration file from /etc/lilo.conf on a to
/etc/lilo.conf on c, changing it thus:

# Start LILO global section
boot = /dev/hdc
message = /boot/boot_message.txt
prompt
timeout = 100
reset
# End LILO global section
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /boot/vmlinuz-C
root = /dev/hdc1
label = LinuxC
read-only
# Linux bootable partition config ends

I made sure that I had a copy of the vmlinuz-C image under /boot
on c, of course. However, when running the vmlinuz-C kernel, if I invoke
lilo (which will read the info in /etc/lilo.conf on c) I get a warning to
the effect that /dev/hdc is not the first disk. Although it claims to have
added LinuxC, the next time I reboot I notice that the boot process still
is controlled by /etc/lilo.conf on a.

Is there a way to accomplish what I want, without physically swapping
disks a and c?