Re: Need help recovering system
A happy ending: I copied the vmlinuz-2.4.9 (as I recall) image from my
backup of /root over LINUX on the diskette I made from rescue.bin of the
debian install disks.. I typed "linux root=/dev/hda6" at the boot prompt,
and all was well.
Apparently the boot sector image the NT Loader was using did get corrupted,
even though its time stamp didn't change.
Thanks to everyone for their help.
At 09:39 PM 9/27/01 -0700, Ross Boylan wrote:
I was having some hardware problems with my drives, and it seems to have
damaged my setup (which is weird, because I thought I had a normal
shutdown just before the problem). My boot floppy is from a couple
generations back (2.4.7, I think) from my current kernel 2.4.9. I'm
running woody. I think I've updated LILO more recently than the kernel,
which is a custom build.
I have the windows 2000 boot loader on the master boot record. One of the
options invokes an image of the start of /dev/hda6, my Linux root
partition (inside an extended partition). I use LILO. I had got a bit
casual about the boot floppy because I recall recovering successfully
before from a different version.
If I boot the regular way (NT loader, select item off the menu) I go to
the very start of the LILO load. The letters LI appear on the screen,
then it stops. The Linux boot sector image (boot.lnx) that the NT loader
uses has no time stamps indicating recent modification, and it is still
the proper 512 bytes.
If I use my (dated) emergency Linux boot floppy, it goes into an
apparently infinite loop warning that it can't find
...2.4.7/modules. That's true; those directories aren't there anymore. I
have tried holding down shift or alt, but can't get a chance to intervene
in this boot process.
I made a rescue diskette from rescue.bin in the boot floppies section for
woody. This complains about missing 2.2.19/modules (rescue
root=/dev/hda6). (Why is the woody installation using a 2.2 kernel?).
I continue to hope this is just a minor glitch with the loading, though
the fact that boot.lnx seems unchanged is not encouraging.
I'd appreciate help diagnosing the problem, fixing the problem, or even
booting into a minimal Linux so that I can see if my partitions look OK
from there. Because there was warning about the hardware problems, I did
have a chance to burn a CD with /etc, /boot, and /root on it.
--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-request@lists.debian.org with a
subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org
Reply to: