From alex14641 on LQ:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/requests-for-current-20151216-a-4175561577/page142.html#post5686598

On my system, the Sandisk Cruzer USB Stick has file names in /dev/disk/by-id/, that contain
colons: this causes lilo to fail when using one of these files as a boot disk. This patch
replaces the failure with a warning.

--- ./src/geometry.c.orig	2015-11-21 17:50:18.000000000 -0600
+++ ./src/geometry.c	2017-03-23 15:30:53.925990587 -0500
@@ -1357,16 +1357,12 @@
 
 int geo_open(GEOMETRY *geo,const char *name,int flags)
 {
-    char *here;
-    int user_dev,block_size;
+    int user_dev = -1,block_size;
     struct stat st;
 
-    if ((here = strrchr(name,':')) == NULL) user_dev = -1;
-    else {
-	*here++ = 0;
-        warn("%s:BIOS syntax is no longer supported.\n    Please use a "
-	  "DISK section.", name);
-	user_dev = to_number(here);
+    if (strrchr(name,':') != NULL) {
+        warn("%s:BIOS syntax is no longer supported: "
+                        "Treating as a device file.", name);
     }
     if ((geo->fd = open(name,flags)) < 0)
 	die("open %s: %s",name,strerror(errno));