How can sarge survive a Windows reinstall?
I need to reinstall Windows ME. I especially need to keep my perfectly working
Debian sargs and woody systems (on other partitions) working perfectly. I am
aware that reinstalling ME will destroy the Debian boot menu that grub so
carefully put there. What do I have to do in advance so that I can restore
or reconstruct of reboot Debian afterward? I've looked into the grub
documentation, but I find it mighty obscure. I'd like to just boot from
a netinstall CD (possibly a newly doenloaded and burned one) and pick a
menu item and have it put everything together again, but I fear it is not
that simple. Some of the older commercial linuxes (and OS/2) had install-disk
menus that did this kind of rescue more-or-less automatically, but it's not
obvious to me what to do with Debian.
I can be careful. I'm not about to sacrifice Debian for Windows by accident.
I'd like to know what to do in advance so that I can restore things to a sane
state easily. I suspect this problem is quite common, Windows being what it is,
but I haven't found clear directions on the Web. I suspect that's because
I'm just a dodo when it comes to web searches, but I can't find detailed,
reliable instructions.
How I got into this mess:
My motherboard has been replaced (previous one fried itself when a fan failed)
The new one seems to have different infrastructure ships (frinm nVidia) from the
old one. Of course, Linux booted and ran perfectly after the replacement.
Windows, on the other hand went into a twenty-times-reboot-to-install-new-drivers
tizzy, and it is now in a state where it will only boot into safe mode after
first crashing during a reboot in unsafe mode, Proper drivers for the nVidia
chipset is available on a CD, which I could only read using Linus because
Windows now refuses to recognise either the CD or the DVD drive. (nor does
it recognise FAT partitions D:. E:. F:. G:. H:, I: or J:, which Linux, of
course had not rouble with).. After copying the CD to Windows C: and
executing the driver installation software from the C: drive, it informed
me that WIndows needed to reboot to complete the installation. Of course
the regular reboot failed, and the consequent safe-more reboot refuses to
run the code that's supposed to complete the installation.
But Debian runs *perfectly*. Even alsa used the new sound chips
(whatever they are!).
-- hendrik
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