Booting Mandrake from CD??
 

Can someone tell me how to boot Mandrake 9.1 from CD? Whenever I try to use the install disks, it just tries to install and then I have to do funky things to get out of it before it overwrites everything.

I can't figure out how to boot into Linux to save my life. (Lilo isn't working, and I need to get into linux to check some of the configs and see if I can get lilo working again.) doh

Thanks!

At the initial prompt where you type "Enter" instead press F1. From there type:
rescue

And hit enter. It will enter rescue mode, from there you'll have very limited, but some use of your system.

cool

I thought rescue mode was a way of repairing files. But maybe I'm too much in "windows" mode? I assumed it would overwrite files, or what not. I tried going through that way and seeing if I could just boot up, but it never occurred to me to go into rescue mode. Is it like safe mode in Windows?

thanks!

Sorta...

It's more like rescue mode in Linux though ;)

You get a command prompt, and a text editor and a reader. I don't remember for sure if you have to execute with full path to get other things working, however, it would make sense.

No, it doesn't overwrite files exactly, but rather gives you a chance at fixing your box without reinstalling; so yes you "can" overwrite files, but it doesn't by default.

Cool

Shoot.. when I go in through rescue mode, the lilo.conf file is not present in the /etc./ directory. Is it possible that because it's such a limited mode I cannot see it there? Or should that be unaffected?

If it's not present, what do I do? I tried to "reinstall the linux bootloader" from the rescue menu, and it gave me an error 14 and closed - whatever that is! ugh!

I don't want to be able to access Windows and not linux! I'd rather have it the other way around if I can get both working! *runs around in circles screaming*

Okay, so maybe I'm not so "gracefully" fighting anything today.. lol

It's probably because it's mounting your disk elsewhere, if at all.

You should still have limited tools in /sbin, check. If you have mount available, see where your partitions are being mounted with:
mount

If you don't just move around the filesystem looking for your hd. Look in /tmp and in /mnt

If it's in nither, try mounting it:
mount -t ext3 /dev/hdx /mnt/hdx

Make the mount points:
mkdir /mnt/hdx
Replace hdx with your partition. Also, change ext3 to the filesystem that your partition was formatted as, maybe ext2 or ReiserFS

Cool

You know, I think I remember when I installed Mandrake that it mounted something in /boot? I do know that I made partitions like this:

1) NTFS (Windows XP) C:
2) ext 3 (Mandrake Linux)
3) swap (Linux Swap)
4) FAT32 (shared Space for both OS)

Should I not have used ext3 for Linux? Could that be the problem? I also remember that partition 4 was the one mounted in /boot.. if that helps at all?

:)

/boot is where your kernel information is kept. You shouldn't need to tinker with that too much, ever.

ext3 is fine, that's what I use. It works great for system recovery when you have to hard reboot, or your power goes out.

As for your drive being mounted at /boot, not likely. Check around /mnt or /tmp

You also have the ability to find I believe, so try that:
find / lilo.conf

And it will search the filesystem for that file. If nothing is returned, then you know at least that your drive (at least the one containing your /etc directory) isn't mounted, so then you can mount it:
mount -t ext3 /dev/hdx /mnt/temphd (or whatever mount point you'd like).

Recovery can sometimes be tedious, all the more reason to not let your system get to that point ;)

Cool

Hrmm.. you've mentioned mounting twice now, and I'm trying to understand about it. I know that if you don't "mount" the drives, that you can't access them at all, right? So essentially, what you're saying is, that if the hd isn't mounted thant he lilo.conf file would be inaccessible and not show up. But wouldn't that mean that the /etc/ directory would be entirely empty then? It had a lot of stuff in it.. just not lilo.conf. Or am I missing a distinction about mounting that my windows-crippled mind isn't yet grasping?

In rescue mode, Mandrake will create it's own, temporary filesystem that is very sleek. It may be creating it's own /etc with files in it to sustain a "rescue" mode.

You are correct, unless you mount a partition you cannot access the files and directories on it. You must mount it, but where is up to you. A mount point is nothing more than a directory, usually empty. So either create one:
mkdir /mnt/something

Or mount it up on an empty one.

HTH

Cool

Well, I was able to use the mount command, but not find. The mount command gave me the following information, which, admittedly, doesn't make much sense to me. It doesn't look like I'm used to seeing mount points defined.

btw - mount wasn't in /sbin, but it worked anyways. *shrug* Go figure.

Mount Results:

/dev/ram3 on / type ext2 (rw)
none on /proc type prco (ro)

That's all it gave. Does that help us figure this out any better?

I'm beginning to wonder if I should reinstall again.. *boggle*

No, no no, reinstalling is for when you are no longer interested in recovery. Recovery is a great tool to learning your system; you just don't want to do it all the time ;)

So it looks like your drive isn't mounted, use fdisk to find it:
fdisk -l

If it returns command not found, try searching for it, or "whereis"
whereis fdisk

Hopefully something will return. If so, locate the drive that contains the root partition. If you have multiple linux drives, mount them all. Here's an example on how:
mkdir /mnt/base
mount -t ext3 /dev/hdx /mnt/base
This will be where your root partition is, then assuming you have a /usr:
mount -t ext3 /dev/hdx /mnt/base/usr
And it *should* then mount the partition at /usr (inside the /mnt/base).

At that point, you should have your full system located at:
/mnt/base
And then you can access/edit files in /etc

HTH

Cool

Okay, so I'm mounting each drive twice? Once into the /mnt/base directory and once in the /mnt/base/usr directory? What does that accomplish? (Not trying to be obtuse, just trying to understand *why* I'm doing stuff, so it helps me remember *what* to do when it happens again.)

Also, I have a linux drive, a linux swap and a FAT32. (The NTFS won't mount under linux, correct? So I don't need to worry about it?)

Ok, so if you have 1 linux partition then don't worry about the second part of my reply. That's only if you use seperate partitions for seperate directories on your linux setup.

So it's just a single mount:
mount -t ext3 /dev/hdc3 /mnt/base

Assuming your partition is /dev/hdc3 (which you will find out from fdisk -l )

Cool