PLAN: surviving a Windows reinstall.
I'd like to thank you all for your advice on by boot floppy troubles.
I've decided on a plan of action.
I would appreciate comments about it, preferably comments that will
help me not screw up.
I have a PC contining Windows ME, woody, and sarge.
I use woody for critical applications; I use sarge
for most other things. Some critical applications are,
unfortunately, not compatible between woody and sarge.
Windows is used by everyone else in the household --
well, almost everyone -- my oldest son is starting to
appreciate Linux.
The computer's motherboard has just been replaced.
Windows will now boot only into safe mode. It's even more useless
than usual,
Sarge runs perfectly, boots from the MBR using grub.
Woody does not recognise the ethernet card.
Woody boots from the grub that was set up when sarge was installed.
Woody cannot read any of sarge's files, because sarge is installed
on a reiserfs partition.
I plan the following to get everything functional again.
Make a boot floppy on the woody system and check that it works.
Woody still has its (currently unused) lilo configuration,
so mkboot should work. This floppy is just in case things
go wrong. I'd make a sarge boot floppy, but all my attempts
have failed.
Download the .debs of a recent 2.4.xx kernel backport, specifically,
initrd-tools_0.1.75.backports.org.1_all.deb
kernel-build-2.4.27-2_2.4.27-7.backports.org.1_i386.deb
kernel-headers-2.4.27-2-386_2.4.27-7.backports.org.1_i386.deb
kernel-image-2.4.27-2-386_2.4.27-7.backports.org.1_i386.deb
kernel-pcmcia-modules-2.4.27-2-386_2.4.27-7.backports.org.1_i386.deb
modutils_2.4.26-0.backports.org.1_i386.deb
>>> Do I need all of these? Do I need others?
Make a local repository containing these backported .debs,
and add it to woody's sources.lst file/
Back up /etc/lilo.conf
Let aptitude install the backport .debs so I will have a new kernel.
>>> Am I right that I will then have two kernels on my hard
disk, but that all the boot procedures and configurations will be
unchanged?
Add a stanza to lilo.conf that recognizes the kernel, so that I will
be able to boot either the reied and true 2.2 or the new-fangled 2.4
kernels.
>>> Is this best done by hand or by doing something like dpkg-reconfigure lilo?
Set lilo.conf to place its boot stuff on another floppy disk's
boot sector. Run lilo. Test the floppy disk by booting everything
in sight.
Boot the backported kernel.
The new kernel should now make sarge and the ethernet visible.
Add another stanza to lilo.conf that will boot the sarge system.
Rerun lilo, installing it to yet another floppy. Test it.
Reinstall Windows.
Boot woody from a floppy.
If all is well, reconfigure lilo run it to install on the MBR.
Or else boot sarge and reconfigure and rerun grub to accomplish the same.
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