Linux failure recovery

[Tracy Nelson <tnelson@fast.net>]

I was just cleaning off my desk and I came across my notes from
recovering from my Linux hose-up a month or so ago and thought I'd share
them with the group.  I was installing the 2.2.0 kernel and managed to
make my Linux partition inaccessible.  I have a triple-boot machine
(NT/Win98/Linux) and I use the NT boot manager.  What I did (wrong) was
to run LILO then fail to copy the new boot sector to the root of my NT
box so the NT boot manager could use it.  When it tried to boot Linux
using the old boot sector, I got the dreaded "LIL-" message.  Here's how
I fixed it:

Fortunately (in this case), I use RH5.1.  First, I "upgraded" to the
vanilla 5.1 release using the RH-supplied upgrade tool.  Then, I made a
generic Linux boot floppy, and a "rescue" disk that booted into a
limited version of Linux.  From there I was able to mount my Linux disk
(hdb1) as /mnt/oldroot.  From there, it was a (reasonably) simple matter
to dd(1) the boot sector and copy it to a floppy (although I had to
mount the floppy from /mnt/oldroot/dev/fd0 -- kinda weird, I thought). 
Once I had it on a floppy, I rebooted into Win98, copied the boot sector
to its accustomed place on the NT partition, rebooted and was able to
get back into Linux.

Thanks to everyone who sent me ideas and "don't panic" messages -- I
needed both!

Cheers!
-- Tracy Nelson

--
To unsubscribe, send a message with the word 'unsubscribe' in the subject
or body of your message to plug-request@lists.nothinbut.net