Re: Invalid partition table (rescue)
Robin,
Thank you so much for the help. I just tried to use the boot disk.
After it booted into /dev/hda6, I ran lilo again, and then reboot the
machine, and it doesn't complain about the partation table again.
Chip
Robin Rowe wrote:
>
> Chip,
>
> I don't know what's wrong, but a typical way to deal with this is to boot
> using a generic rescue (install) diskette. (Win98 doesn't understand Linux
> so whatever it may report is suspect.) A Debian install floppy has to work
> whether your CD will boot or not.
>
> When presented the main install menu don't follow the normal sequence, but
> choose instead to mount your existing swap and ext2 partitions. The first
> warning that proceeding may lose data on your disk can be ignored, but don't
> choose to install Linux to a particular partition or then you will lose your
> data there. Pick partition disk to proceed into cfdisk to check that things
> are as you want there. You will probably want to quit cfdisk without any
> changes. Mount your partitions. Then select from the install menu that you
> want to make Linux bootable and follow the normal sequence for installing
> LILO. With any luck you are on your way.
>
> Total time to put things right is about five minutes, if you have a rescue
> diskette. It may take longer if you have to create the diskette from the CD.
> To do that you will need a machine that will boot to MS-DOS or Linux. Extra
> difficulty if you must boot a win98 box into MS-DOS with no real mode CD-ROM
> drivers. Copy the boot directory off the CD onto a FAT16 partition in
> Windows first if you have to go that route.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Robin
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Fu-Dong Chiou" <chioufd@sas.upenn.edu>
> To: <debian-user@lists.debian.org>
> Cc: "Fu-Dong Chiou" <chioufd@sas.upenn.edu>
> Sent: Friday, February 16, 2001 4:07 PM
> Subject: Invalid partition table?
>
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > I am having a problem booting to a Compaq LTE5200 laptop. It has
> > been runnning linux for almost two years until yesterday when I decided
> > to try to upgrade it using a bootable CD. Since it did not seem to boot
> > from the CD, I thought I might make it happen by modifying /etc/lilo.conf.
> >
> > Here's what I have
> >
> > /dev/hda1 400+M ext2 /opt
> > /dev/hda2 1.6+G Extented
> > /dev/hda5 80M swap
> > /dev/hda6 1.6+G ext2 / *bootdisk
> >
> > /dev/hda1 used to have Windows98, but was reformatted to accommondate more
> > linux applications, and is not bootable. (This was done more than one
> > month ago.) But /etc/lilo.conf still has this windows information up
> > until yesterday, so I thought I'd modify it and try to add /dev/hdb
> > and see if that makes CDROM a bootable device.
> >
> > After reboot, the first message displays reads
> >
> > 120 MHz Pentium Processor
> > External Cache: 256K Enabled
> > Invalid partition table
> >
> > I tried to boot from a rootless diskette (floppy module and CDROM module
> > share the same drive bay), and run lilo from there, but there an error
> > message returning that said:
> >
> > # lilo -C /mnt/etc/lilo.conf -b /dev/hda6 -i /mnt/boot.boot.b
> >
> > Ignoring entry 'root'
> > Ignoring entry 'install'
> > First boot sector doesn't have a valid LILO signature
> >
> > The /etc/lilo.conf looks like this:
> >
> > boot = /dev/hda
> > compact
> > timeout = 1
> > prompt
> > vga = normal
> > read-only
> > map = /boot/map
> > install = /boot/boot.p
> > image = /boot/vmlinuz
> > lable = linux
> > root = /dev/hda6
> >
> > I am at my wit's end. As far as I can tell, everything looks fine.
> > Mounting /dev/hda6 after booting from tomsrbt diskette shows that
> > evrerything is still there. However, when I use Windows98 bootdisk to
> > boot, and run fdisk from dos prompt, it shows that /dev/hda2 is not a
> > bootable device, and there is no /dev/hda5 or /dev/hda6. I am not sure
> > how the whole thing happened. Would appreciate any suggestion. Thanks!
> >
> > Best wishes,
> > Chip
> >
> >
> >
> > --
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> >
> >
>
Best wishes,
Chip
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