accidently deleted /boot partition :(

aditya_ic · 07-27-2004, 01:09 AM

Hi,

While trying to format a fat 32 partition, qtparted showed me the wrong partition number and I ended up deleting and formatting my /boot partition (mounted on /dev/hda5 on my drive). Is there a way to recreate /boot? GRUB is/was my boot loader. I havent rebooted my system yet.
I'm running FC2 and 2.6.7 kernel.

Any help would be greatly appriciated.
Thanks,

Aditya

ppuru · 07-27-2004, 02:00 AM

Tough one

Try this out ....

Boot into Rescue mode and follow the instructions closely ... especially the chrooting into /mnt/sysimage.
Chroot into /mnt/sysimage

You have your linux system ready to be repaired.

If you have the 2.6.7 files in /usr/src, copy them over to /boot

Create an elementary grub.conf

Code:

title Fedora FC2
      kernel /boot/<your vmlinuz> ro root=/dev/<your root partition> rhgb
      initrd /boot/initrd<whatever>.img

edit
Before doing all that ...
you need to fdisk. set the partition type of your /boot partition to 83, format it as ext3 or reiserfs ... whatever it had previously.. After this, you can venture into the chroot stuff.

aditya_ic · 07-28-2004, 03:15 AM

Thanks.
For some reason I can't boot into Windows XP though Linux works fine.

Apart from restoring the kernel, I had to reinstall grub as the /boot parition's number had changed.

here is fdisk output:

Disk /dev/hda: 41.1 GB, 41110142976 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 79656 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 20942 10554673+ c W95 FAT32 (LBA) <-- This is my XP partition
/dev/hda2 20942 79656 29591730 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5 41885 42087 102280+ 83 Linux <--- This is /boot now
/dev/hda6 42088 78615 18410080+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda7 78616 79655 524128+ 82 Linux swap
/dev/hda8 20942 41884 10554673+ c W95 FAT32 (LBA) <-- this is the new reiserfs partition

Earlier /dev/hda8 was /dev/hda5 and it was a fat32 partition.

Here is my grub.conf:

default=1
timeout=5
#splashimage=(hd0,5)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
title Fedora Core (2.6.7)
root (hd0,4)
kernel /bzImage root=/dev/hda6

Any ideas why XP fails to load? Whenever i choose XP it just returns to the same menu.
Thanks,

Aditya.

ppuru · 07-28-2004, 05:13 AM

You can boot using the XP cd, get into recovery console and run fixmbr.

this will install the XP bootloader. Check if you can boot into XP.

Next reboot using your linux install cd, get into rescue mode and run grub-install.

that should fix the problem of XP not booting.

aditya_ic · 07-28-2004, 03:24 PM

Just to be sure I should install grub on first sector of /boot (/dev/hda5)

grub-install /dev/hda5

and not on mbr. right?

I think it got screwed because i installed grub on mbr. grub-install /dev/hda

Thanks

aditya_ic · 07-28-2004, 06:21 PM

Hi,

I tried booting from XP cd and ran fixmbr...now the system doesnt boot at all and I cant type anything. I tried fixboot too but the same output. I did restore the previous mbr. I cant boot to linux but not XP. it says

Disk Error
Press any key to restart

ppuru · 07-28-2004, 10:32 PM

you did it right by installing grub on the MBR.

After you boot into linux, can you mount the windows partitions? especially the XP system paritition?

aditya_ic · 07-29-2004, 02:37 AM

Yes i can mount all the partitions including the XP (/dev/hda1)