> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Horst > Sent: Wednesday, July 03, 2002 12:00 > Subject: [EUG-LUG:3266] Re: Dexter's boot troubles > > Dexter, > Let me start by saying that I DO enjoy and appreciate your detailed > problem descriptions --and sometimes success report, i.e. how you got the > CD burner working.
Thanks for the positive feedback. It's nice to believe that someone somewhere will benefit from my efforts at sharing what I have learned. > Also my first response was that bits and bytes on your HD are slowly > crumbling away. However, if Jamie's remarks regarding "unlinked boot > block" solved your problem my comments below are mute (I wrote them > before reading the whole story) My problem solved itself by fortuitous accident. But Jamie's analysis was helpful in my reaching an understanding of what actually happened. > Such HD problems can be intermittent and non-reproducible, and may not > always be caught by/during checks (that's just my guess). The only way I > could identified that once on my HD (and a flaky ZIP drive too) was by > making a binary file comparison of the offending files reported, using an > earlier backup. > For backups I usually tar up entire directory branches or partitions of a > working installation I feel is worth keeping, e.g. > tar -czf distroX_hdbN_boot_date-plusmore.tgz /boot > (since I am too lazy to keep notes I put all I need to know into the file > name) Thanks for this example. I will have to experiment with using tar. > There are tons of options documented for the tar command and various ways > of doing that, but one warning: you may want to uncompress into a > sub-directory for such comparison. > > How old is your HD ? Is it working hard ? (e.g. swap operations) > If the HD is going bad there is no point in wasting time on a detailed > analysis. The hard disk is relatively new and does not work hard at all. It's off most of the time because I usually work on my Windows 2000 system where I don't have to struggle so much to figure things out. Every time I try to switch over to GNU/Linux some disaster happens (like this boot block error--or whatever it was) which throws me back to Windows. I just don't have the time or energy to fight a never-ending battle with my computer. > My 5c ............................ Horst (on digest). Thanks, Dexter PS: Did you know my name used to be Dieter? I changed it because here in America a "dieter" is someone who is on a diet. The pronunciation of "Dieter" was always a problem for me and I got tired of constantly correcting people, so I finally changed it. Nobody mispronounces or misspells "Dexter". (c:W
