[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

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



On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 10:39:18PM -0500, 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.
> 
> 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?
> 
> Thanks for any help,
> 
> Dan
> 

What I would do is put a live system on a USB flash drive (System Rescue
CD is what I usually use) and mount the unbootable hard drive from
within the live system. At that point you could wget a kernel deb from
http://ftp.uk.debian.org onto your old mounted hard drive. chroot into
your drive's mount point, dpkg -i linux-image-*, and you're done; your
system should now be bootable.

-- 
		  http://pobega.wordpress.com
		    http://identica/pobega

Attachment: signature.asc
Description: Digital signature


Reply to: