Re: System Dorked -- Help! (Interim solution!)
On Sunday 25 October 2015 08:53:00 David Baron wrote:
> On Sunday 25 October 2015 08:19:41 Gene Heskett wrote:
> > On Sunday 25 October 2015 06:57:06 David Baron wrote:
> > > Using the live disk, went back to the old (failing!) 80gig disk,
> > > edited back to where I was, bound the /dev and chroot and mounted
> > > what I needed.
> > > update-initramfs and lilo worked without any segfault.
> > >
> > > So back up. Time to buy another big disk and move stuff or
> > > reinstall with Jesse. Trouble is these big SATAs are not so great.
> > > That 80gig IDE which smart claims is pre-failure (but does not
> > > totally support) predates them all.
> >
> > Another thought comes to mind since you mentioned a big disk, but I
> > don't recall the size if it has been quoted in this thread.
> >
> > But In installing linuxcnc (debian wheezy based) on fresh disks, I
> > have twice now been forced to allocate a /boot partition at the
> > beginning of a 2 terabyte disk.
> >
> > This may not be the reason, but my theory is that by the time the
> > install gets around to installing grub, (its the last thing it does)
> > its boot files are too far into the disk for bios/lilo/grub2 to find
> > them, so the reboot at the end of the install fails.
> >
> > The worst part of that is that the partitioner will not accept a 1
> > gigabyte partition, which is a great plenty, so I was forced to use
> > 5% of the disk as a boot partition.
> >
> > That is about 47 gigabytes, of which <1% is actually used.
> > Ridiculous, but it works. Those 3 machines would be happy as clams
> > with a 20 gigabyte disk. Even SSD's are bigger than that these
> > days.
> >
> > So I am left wondering if this might be a solution to your boot
> > problem.
> >
> > lilo has been out of favor for a goodly piece of a decade, and with
> > even grub1 being far more versatile, I am amazed to hear of someone
> > still using it. I have no clue what its LBA capabilities are in
> > light of the sizes of todays drives.
> >
> > If someone could elaborate on that, it might also be of educational
> > value here.
> >
> > Cheers, Gene Heskett
>
> I started with wheezy 64 bit install and grub2. Did not have any clue
> how it worked but it did. When upgraded to Sid, added a kernel and
> wanted to keep the older on around just-in-case, I had no idea how to
> do this with Grub2 so I went back to Lilo. Lilo also makes it easy of
> have a systemd and older-style init choice, the latter saved me
> recently.
>
> Running afoul of having two 1 terra disks around could have been the
> problem. I have no understanding of this business. I had no problem
> reading and writing the partition I wanted to make root. Just could
> not do anything in it, either chroot or on boot into the system which
> malfunctioned.
>
> How do I make custom boot menus, kernel, init choices and such using
> the Grub?
Thats a question I'll have to let others answer. All 4 of my machines
here are running "pinned" kernels, which have been patched for real time
interrupts, AKA "RTAI", so I don't worry about a scripted rerun of
grub-install wiping out the hacks I have installed directly
into /boot/grub/grub.cfg.
That however is frowned on mightily here, and someone will drag out his
soap box and read me a few verses of the riot act, for exactly that
reason. I.W.F.M. though.
Cheers, Gene Heskett
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>
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