Re: Help needed to repair a damaged dual boot Debian System
On Fri, 24 Feb 2012 18:35:54 +0100
Bernard <bdebreil@teaser.fr> wrote:
> It is a 3-4 yrs old machine that belongs to my Genealogical
> Association. (Intel Pentium 4 - 3.2 GHz - RAM 2048 MB). At the time
> of purchase, it was fitted with MSWIN XP ; I repartitioned the HD to
> have a dual boot (GRUB) with Debian Lenny and the original OS ; it
> worked very well in such config for more than 2 years or so ; I had a
> mysql server on it, with mysql databases.
>
> Two weeks ago, while trying to boot the system, the monitor screen had
> remained black. Same thing when trying another monitor. So, we took
> the machine to a repair shop, where our Graphic card was being
> replaced ; it costed close to 200 bucks. Once tested, the machine
> booted OK on the MSWIN partition, but it no longer booted on Debian
> Linux: the system just waited indefinitely without doing nothing.
> Error messages appeared after 4 or 5 long minutes of idling, they
> mostly said that /dev/sda3 did not (no longer) exist, and that,
> perhaps, I should try /dev/hda3. I did so, editing the GRUB boot
> command. Debian Linux then booted all-right, after about 3 minutes of
> idling. Once booted, the Linux system seemed to behave normally, as
> far as I have been able to investigate: Mysqld, OpenOffice, Firefox
> etc... seemed to behave as they should. A few things were abnormal
> though, may be more many things than those I have discovered so far.
> For once, the CDROM drivers did not operate at all on Debian
> environment ; under MSWIN one of the two drivers did operate ; none
> of the two drives would boot a bootable CD (whatever settings in the
> BIOS SETUP), so there is no way that I could possibly launch a
> SystemRescueCD bootdisk.
>
> I could try re-partitioning and re-installing, but I am not sure that
> it is the best thing to do, since it could end up that some piece of
> hardware is disfunctioning or simply disconnected. I would hate having
> to return to the repair shop, since I doubt if the tech man is
> trustworthy.
>
I bet your MS repair guy let windows repair itself:
So your boot loader has been overwritten.
As for the CDROMs, open it up and check all the cables are properly
seated on the CDROMs, as your description sounds mechanical.
There's nothing in there than can bite, turn the power off first .
Your first priority is to get the CDROMs functional then you can sort
the system out as suggested by others.
--
Best wishes / 73
Richard Bown
e-mail: richard@g8jvm.com or richard.bown@blueyonder.co.uk
nil carborundum a illegitemis
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