The way you phrased it seemed somewhat confusing, but basically, if I understand this correctly, the computer restarts before it ever reaches the LILO boot screen, correct? If that's the case, you're probably going to have to reinstall the LILO boot manager. To do so, you'll either have to boot into Linux with a Linux boot floppy (if you created one during the installation) or set it up again by booting off of the Linux CD and allowing the setup to rebuild LILO. Good luck.

AJ