Re: help! install with DOS-lost HD on boot
In <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, on 06/03/99 at 01:34 PM, David Coe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: >[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> >> Home with the school computer for summer... I wanted to redo my drive layout >> due to very limited space, squeezing out OS/2 and Windows for Linux. I've >> lost my Linux drives, though. I am hoping someone could point out where I >> screwed up, and suggest a way to avoid reinstalling (or doing it right ;). >If you haven't written to those ext2 partitions since the screw-up, you >*should* be able to recover... [...] >So now your partition table is correct, right? All you should have to do is >edit your lilo.conf and run lilo to install it. *Something* like the >following is probably what you need. Post your previous lilo.conf here and >maybe we can figure out what you did wrong the first time. David, Thanks for the response. I rebooted from the DOS partition onto the installation disk last night, remounted the (existing) partitions, then ran the installation script to have LILO automatically boot Linux. This worked to get me back into Linux on rebooting, and I followed the same procedure as before, modifying lilo.conf (which still looks just like yours in the post), and viola!, DOS booted as desired. No problems now. I have NO idea why there was a problem in the first place, unless there was some mishap due to the way cfdisk set the HD for DOS and the way DOS sets the drive. After the partitioning/installation of Linux, the original report from the DOS floppy was 90 Mb, then 100+ after format. That was the point where things began to fall apart. I am led to conclude that one should partition, then add the DOS system, then continue on in the Linux install. Thanks again, David! Kenward -- --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: help! install with DOS-lost HD on boot
In <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, on 06/03/99 at 01:34 PM, David Coe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: >[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> >> Home with the school computer for summer... I wanted to redo my drive layout >> due to very limited space, squeezing out OS/2 and Windows for Linux. I've >> lost my Linux drives, though. I am hoping someone could point out where I >> screwed up, and suggest a way to avoid reinstalling (or doing it right ;). >If you haven't written to those ext2 partitions since the screw-up, you >*should* be able to recover... [...] >So now your partition table is correct, right? All you should have to do is >edit your lilo.conf and run lilo to install it. *Something* like the >following is probably what you need. Post your previous lilo.conf here and >maybe we can figure out what you did wrong the first time. David, Thanks for the response. I rebooted from the DOS partition onto the installation disk last night, remounted the (existing) partitions, then ran the installation script to have LILO automatically boot Linux. This worked to get me back into Linux on rebooting, and I followed the same procedure as before, modifying lilo,conf (which looked just like yours in the post), and viola!, DOS booted as desired. No problems now. I have NO idea why there was a problem in the first place, unless there was some mishap due to the way cfdisk set the HD for DOS and the way DOS sets the drive. After the partitioning/installation of Linux, the original report from the DOS floppy was 90 Mb, then 100+ after format. That was the point where things fell apart. I suspect differences in Linux's and DOS's views of the partition. Thanks again! Kenward -- --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: help! install with DOS-lost HD on boot
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > Home with the school computer for summer... I wanted to redo my drive layout > due to very limited space, squeezing out OS/2 and Windows for Linux. I've > lost my Linux drives, though. I am hoping someone could point out where I > screwed up, and suggest a way to avoid reinstalling (or doing it right ;). If you haven't written to those ext2 partitions since the screw-up, you *should* be able to recover... > After backing up critical files to a new-but-old 430 Mb HD (hdb), I wiped all > partitions on hda, created a 100 Mb fat DOS partition, 2 primaries for root > and swap, then 3 logicals on the rest of hda for /var, /home, and /usr. > Install of 2.1 went well from CD. Set up LILO as my boot manager. > > Rebooted to a DOS floppy to check, and then format C (it saw the partition as > 90 Mb instead of 100--did I choose the wrong fs type?)... Probably not, we'll see soon... more likely the FORMAT program counts differently or measures its "usable" space. Also remember that 100,000,000 is really about 95 megabytes (where a megabyte is 1024*1024 bytes). > ...Booted into Linux. > Untarred the old DOS system onto the "C" partition, modified lilo.conf, and > ran lilo. This led to the inability to boot DOS ("non-system disk or disk > error" ... or whatever it was). So LILO was able to boot at this point, right? But when you told LILO to start the DOS partiton DOS didn't see it as a "system disk," correct? I think there's a DOS command "sys" (sorry, it's been a long time) that copies (from a bootable floppy) the necessary stuff to a hard drive partition -- so you could boot from a DOS A: drive, be sure you can see C:, and then say "sys C:" -- it should say "system files transferred" or something to that effect . Someone else more familiar with (recent versions of) DOS can probably offer advice here. > Using cfdisk I reset both hda1 and hda2 as bootable (1st-->DOS, 2nd-->Debian) > and wrote to disk. Re-read error reported by cfdisk. Reboot led to an > inability to boot LILO at all. AFAIK the "bootable" flag isn't used by LILO or by Linux -- I wonder whether DOS is confused if you more than one "bootable" partition at the same time? I seem to recall switching "the bootable partition" from one partition to another back in my pre-Linux days, but never having more than one bootable at the same time. Maybe someone else knows whether that's part of your mistake. > An old Linux rescue disk taught me to make a new one at some future point :( > I didn't realize it was "set" to another partition, and I don't know how to > change that.. ). > > A DOS floppy allowed me to again reformat the C drive, install DOS/Win31 for > my kids' games, and boot directly to DOS. But I'd like to get the drive back > to Linux control without a reinstall, if possible. > > Can I make a rescue floppy from the DOS partition, using the CD and skipping > all other installation steps? Can someone let me know what step I would take > to get this working afterwards? If your old Linux rescue disk is a Debian rescue disk, you should be able to bring up a command shell (with alt-F2, for example) after you tell it whether you have a color monitor or not (maybe even before)...certainly before it does anything to your hard drive. If you don't have a debian rescue disk, create one from the CD or download and create one from ftp.debian.org ... you probably just need resc1440.bin and a working linux/unix system (to run the 'dd' command) or the DOS "rawrite.exe" from the same ftp site to create the bootable debian rescue disk under DOS. In either case, boot from a recent debian rescue disk, and get yourself to the shell prompt. Run 'fdisk /dev/hda' and use (ONLY!) the "p" (print) command to see what your partition table looks like. Post that output here (if necessary, you can mount a scratch floppy drive (the debian rescue disk can be removed) and copy the fdisk output to the floppy to transfer it to your working system ). IF all your partitions are still correctly allocated, skip the next paragraph. If you find that not all your partitions are listed by the "p" command, there's a nice tool called 'gpart' that "guesses" the partitions on your hard disk, by reading the raw disk and looking for various fingerprints, and tells you what it thinks it found. I have recently debianized that tool, but have not been able to upload it (still waiting for "maintainer" status). If you need it, call or write and I'll help you get it and use it. So now your partition table is correct, right? All you should have to do is edit your lilo.conf and run lilo to install it. *Something* like the following is probably what you need. Post your previous lilo.conf here and maybe we can figure out what you did wrong the first time. - boot=/dev/hda compact install=/boot/boot.b map=/boot/map lock prompt timeout=50 delay=10 other=/dev/hda1 table=/dev/hda label=dos image=/vmlinuz root=/dev
help! install with DOS-lost HD on boot
Home with the school computer for summer... I wanted to redo my drive layout due to very limited space, squeezing out OS/2 and Windows for Linux. I've lost my Linux drives, though. I am hoping someone could point out where I screwed up, and suggest a way to avoid reinstalling (or doing it right ;). After backing up critical files to a new-but-old 430 Mb HD (hdb), I wiped all partitions on hda, created a 100 Mb fat DOS partition, 2 primaries for root and swap, then 3 logicals on the rest of hda for /var, /home, and /usr. Install of 2.1 went well from CD. Set up LILO as my boot manager. Rebooted to a DOS floppy to check, and then format C (it saw the partition as 90 Mb instead of 100--did I choose the wrong fs type?). Booted into Linux. Untarred the old DOS system onto the "C" partition, modified lilo.conf, and ran lilo. This led to the inability to boot DOS ("non-system disk or disk error" ... or whatever it was). Using cfdisk I reset both hda1 and hda2 as bootable (1st-->DOS, 2nd-->Debian) and wrote to disk. Re-read error reported by cfdisk. Reboot led to an inability to boot LILO at all. An old Linux rescue disk taught me to make a new one at some future point :( I didn't realize it was "set" to another partition, and I don't know how to change that.. ). A DOS floppy allowed me to again reformat the C drive, install DOS/Win31 for my kids' games, and boot directly to DOS. But I'd like to get the drive back to Linux control without a reinstall, if possible. Can I make a rescue floppy from the DOS partition, using the CD and skipping all other installation steps? Can someone let me know what step I would take to get this working afterwards? Thanks for any help!! Kenward Vaughan (currently on my other machine :) -- --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---