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Ok provided that you have created a new /dev/hda or formatted your old /dev/hda, AND can boot from this computer (via cdrom), then you can follow this guide to installing GRUB or LILO on your system. Granted, you are using redhat, but the underlying system is still the same.<br>
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http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook.xml?part=1&chap=9<br>
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<-----Original Message-----> <br>
From: Daniel Herrington<br>
Sent: 11/27/2003 11:58:33 AM<br>
To: nclug@nclug.org<br>
Subject: Re: [NCLUG] grub reinstall and /boot recovery<br>
<br>
Help!<br>
<br>
I'm at my wit's end. Here's the situation:<br>
<br>
I've got a laptop that I had RH9 on. I wanted to send it in for service <br>
(the LCD flickers), so I took the hard drive out and backed it up using <br>
dd on my desktop machine. I used dd to put the entire /dev/hdb (laptop <br>
drive) onto /dev/hde (a slightly larger drive on my PC). The "total <br>
records in" matched the "total records out". I checked the partition <br>
sizes and everything seemed okay. I loaded the original OS (Win95) onto <br>
the laptop drive, sent the laptop in for service, and got it back. When <br>
I attempted "dd if=/dev/hde of=/dev/hdb" on my desktop PC, I got an <br>
error that dd couldn't finish (the "total records out" was 1 less than <br>
the "total records in"). When I put the laptop drive back into the <br>
laptop, it wouldn't boot (not a surprise). I hooked it back up to my <br>
desktop and verified that the second partition (used for / ) is fine, <br>
but the first partition (used for /boot ) is corrupted. It's corrupted <br>
on the backup hard drive as well, so I can't get it back.<br>
<br>
However, I have a very similar OS (RH9 with a few extra kernels compiled <br>
in addition to what the laptop had) on my desktop PC, so I thought I <br>
could just mkfs.ext3 the laptop drive's first partition, cp -a * from <br>
the /boot partition of my desktop drive's /boot partition to the laptop <br>
drive's /boot partition, and then use the boot floppy for the laptop to <br>
successfully boot... at which point I could run "grub-install /dev/hda" <br>
or "grub-install --root-directory=/boot /dev/hda" on the laptop drive. <br>
This runs just fine, but when I try to boot without the boot floppy, I <br>
get "Insert disk,..." and a few strange characters.<br>
<br>
Assuming I blew away my /boot partition, is there any way for me to <br>
salvage my OS installation? What are the steps I should take to get it <br>
back? Am I running the grub reinstall correctly? (I must admit, I've <br>
never felt as comfortable with grub and how it works as I did with lilo.)<br>
<br>
Thanks,<br>
Daniel Herrington<br>
<br>
<br>
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