Re: I screwed up and cannot boot

[kmself@ix.netcom.com]

On Fri, Mar 10, 2000 at 06:01:37PM -0600, David J. Kanter wrote:
> I moved some partitions around and now cannot boot Debian.
> 
> Previously, I had three partitions dedicated to Mandrake (/dev/hda6-8), but 
> deleted them so I could move my Debian partitions (/dev/hda9-13) to the old 
> Mandrake positions.
> 
> First, I changed /etc/fstab in Debian to reflect the new changes; then 
> changed /etc/lilo.conf to reflect the new changes. Then I dumped my kernel 
> onto a disk, rebooted into Windows and ran Partition Magic. I deleted the 
> Mandrake partitions and then moved the Debian partitions into their new homes.

You probably overwrote or invalidated your LILO boot sector in the
process of doing this.  If your former LILO is still in place, it would
explain the "bad superblocks" messages, assuming LILO is trying to boot
what are now Windows partitions.

> But now I cannot boot. I put in the boot disk I made, but I get kernel 
> panic messages. I've tried booting with the Slink CD I've got, and passing 
> boot: Linux single root=/dev/hda6 initd= but that gets me to the point of 
> "you've got bad superblocks."
> 
> Is there any hope? I didn't back up my home directory.

If you've got a Debian rescue disk, boot with it.  If you don't, get a
rescue disk, Tom's Root/Boot is a lifesaver -- Linux on a floppy
(http://www.toms.net/rb/) -- or the LinuxCare Bootable Business Card (a
CD-ROM mini-format -- http://www.linuxcare.com/bootable_cd/ -- though
the images aren't yet online).

Boot from whatever rescue disk you have, mount your Linux partition(s)
(you may want to fsck them first), and run LILO with the -C option to
specify a config file:

   lilo -C /mount-point/etc/lilo.conf

You should now be able to boot.

> Thanks for any support.
> 
> Dave
> 
> 
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-- 
Karsten M. Self (kmself@ix.netcom.com)
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