Its the initrd.gz file. If I comment it out, lilo will boot to a point, then kernel-panic (of course). As well as boot memtest. If I don't comment it out, It gives me a '?', but no error message, and fails. Grub works fine.
I've googled elsewhere initrd images can be too large; they often are a couple MB but are now over 10MB gzipped on LCDs/LUSBs
the boot images must be on the first 500MB of disk (I have a 1 GB KDE_0.sqfs, so maybe I copied a modified initrd past the 500MB point?)
And SCSI support must be either in the kernel or load early in the initrd.
I like lilo because it does 640x480 16bit VGA (unlike crude Grub 10bit color), and I understand it. I must grub four hours in confusion though, when trying to fathom what's mounted where, if its persistent, et.
Comments, Lilo fans?