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Old 07-20-2005, 08:31 PM   #1
bretticus
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Registered: Nov 2003
Distribution: Debian 3.1
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Sarge botched boot


OK,

I feel like an idiot. I have a Dell PowerEdge 1850. It is RAID 1 with a Perc4 RAID controller. The megaraid2 drivers are utilized for this controller. The server was working great until one day I decided I'd rather use grub instead of LILO. Now, I know very little about grub, but I quickly assumed that the debian package would make the upgrade idiot-proof. Without even so much as googling "lilo to grub Debian sarge", I installed the deb via apt-get and rebooted the machine. Now when lilo (not grub) tries to boot the system. I see LI and then the system freezes :-) So now (I have to get the data on it at least) I google "Debian Sarge rescue." I've tried using the install cd in expert mode to use the "open shell" method. This tells me harddrives are mounted at /target but ls reveals that mount point does not exist. Looking for /dev/sda1 (the old root partition) yields no result (this is all after loading the megaraid2 module even.) I tried to install the base system hoping to have an option to not format the primary partition. I read somewhere that a guy was able to do this without formatting in expert mode. The installer gave no option to leave the partition table the way it is and not reformat (at least I couldn't see it.) I tried using Damn Small Linux to mount the harddrive (KNOPPIX doesn't add anything helpful to /etc/fstab on startup: like a mount point to the hard drive.) Basically, every avenue I tried to follow fell through. I HAVE to get log files off this machine or I'm toast. does anyone have suggestion(s) to be able to fix lilo here or mount the old harddrive root to retrieve the log files??

Thanks!!!
 
Old 07-21-2005, 02:41 PM   #2
mrog
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Registered: Jul 2003
Location: Ontario, Canada
Distribution: Debian, Ubuntu
Posts: 39

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mount drive from install disc

You may have already tried this:

Boot to the installer and go through the motions until the partition manager comes up.
Opt to manually partition the drive.
Go through each partition, except swap of course, and change Use as to the type of file system your using and configure the mount points so they match what you had before. (Also, turn the Bootable flag on for the / partition)
Do not choose to format the partition.
Then choose to Finish partitioning and write changes to disk.
The only partition listed to be formated should be the swap partition.
Choose Yes.
If you get the Not installing to unclean target error, select Go Back and press continue on the next screen.

Now if you go to the command line /target should contain your data. I'm doing this as I type.

As far as sda1 not appearing, it doesn't on mine either because the installer mounts partitions as /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1 .. etc.

Also, since the partitions are mounted, you might try at this point to select the option from the installer menu to install a boot loader and hope it works out a little bit better.

If you've already done this or it still doesn't work and you have another drive you could try installing on that and then mount the first drives partions.
 
Old 07-26-2005, 04:14 PM   #3
bretticus
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Registered: Nov 2003
Distribution: Debian 3.1
Posts: 36

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Much thanks mrog,

Sure enough, the manual partition tool DOES in fact let you specify not to format an existing non-swap partition--THANKS! Okay, here comes question number 2...

When I attempt to run "Install GRUB Boot loader on hard disk", it warns me about the unclean target. I choose proceed. Then I get the following errors:

umount /target/dev/pts: Invalid Argument
umount /target/dev/shm: Invalid Argument
umount /target/proc/bus/usb: Invalid Argument

However, /target is mounted to my harddrive. So I try opening a shell and running lilo in the /target/sbin/lilo (using -C /target/etc/lilo.conf ) and my current lilo.conf file gives me a stat error about /dev/sda...which I totally understand. So, I type mount and see that /target is mounted from:

/dev/scsci/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1

I look in that directory and I see disk, part1 (obviously my "first" partition or sda1), and part2 (this should be the swap partition I'll assume.)

If I create a lilo.conf file with /dev/scsci/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/disk substituted for /dev/sda, will I be able to fix my lilo boot?

Is there a MUCH easier way (there usually is.) For example, could I umount the RAM disk and remount /target as / somehow and even then would I be able to either fix lilo or install grub (I have the grub bins on the disk) ?

Thanks!

Last edited by bretticus; 07-26-2005 at 04:17 PM.
 
  


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