Olafur Jens Sigurdsson wrote: [cut]
My question is; is there any recovery option other than a re-install? I have several live CDs and Knoppix comes up fine, although grml doesn't.I think the directions here should work: http://forums.osdir.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=251
They did. Many thanks for refreshing my ageing memory:-) GRUB actually provided a single user option at start-up which I had failed to process.
It's odd that the installation completed successfully, except for preserving the root and user details and leaving Ethernet in an odd state. Ethernet comes up at 100 Mbps in single user, but only 10 Mbps in user mode in Gnome. It's hardly a major problem, as my broadband connection is still only 2 Mbps and that is the main use I have for the LAN.
The really pleasant surprise was to find OpenOffice.org is at 2.0.4 - before the release notification had even reached my inbox! Ditto with Firefox at 1.5.0.7. Maybe I really can ditch Windows at last:-)
Peter HB