Re: Upgrading kernel on a system that won't boot

[Ron Johnson <ron.l.johnson@cox.net>]

On 02/11/2009 09:39 PM, Dan Christensen wrote:
> I have a system running etch.  I believe it has this kernel installed:
>
>   linux-image-2.6.18-5-k7  2.6.18.dfsg.1-13etch2 
>
> The motherboard failed a few days ago, and I've just got a new
> motherboard and cpu.  However, the machine won't boot.
>
> The new cpu is a Core2Duo, but even though the kernel is -k7, that
> doesn't seem to be the problem.  Grub finds the kernel and it starts
> fine, but it has trouble when trying to mount the real root filesystem.
> This filesystem is raid 1 (md), and the kernel can't find either device.

Probably it's device letter has changed.  At the Grub prompt, "e"dit 
the command line to point it to the correct partition.

> The hard drives are SATA, and the BIOS lets me configure them as Legacy
> ATA, RAID or AHCI.  I've tried Legacy ATA and AHCI, and neither works.
>
> A recent live CD is able to see the drives without any trouble, so I
> suspect I need a newer kernel.
>
> Finally my question:  can someone explain how to boot from a live CD and
> upgrade the kernel I have installed?  Do I just mount the various
> filesystems into a subtree, chroot to the root of that subtree, 
> adjust sources.list, and do the upgrade?
>
> Secondary question: Will the dependencies allow this without essentially
> upgrading to lenny?  Or is there an etch backport of a more recent
> kernel?  Or maybe I should just compile one from source for now?
>
> Or is there an alternative, manual way to drop a new pre-compiled kernel
> onto the existing system?

--
Ron Johnson, Jr.
Jefferson LA  USA

Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification