LILO files corruption
 

I bought a hard disk(a SAMSUNG IDE 40 GB) and ask the seller to install it in my computer. It was a used HD. There were new 160GB or used 40 GB IDE disks in the store. As the 160GB was too expensive I ask to install the used one. I never have trouble with used HD before.

When I arrive at home and power on the machine, Mandriva can't access the new(old) disk. When I boot the machine in windows, the drive letters was interrupted indicating that windows knows that the drive was present but can't access it too. I tried to partitioning with drake and finally I have success with partition magic under windows. Note that in the way from the store to my home the disk seems to lost its partitions.

I format the partitions and give them names. Finally I try to give a name to each partition that I had in each disk. I used the Mandriva configuration center. Okay. When I reboot the machine, linux didn't boot. When I selected linux from LILO menu it reports an error in the superblock. I try to recover with e2fsck -b 8183 /dev/hda without success. I lose. I install Mandriva again in the extf3 partition of the original disk and everything seems to be running well, finally. Except that I only can access the ext3 partition of the new(old) disk with root. But this is a matter to a future question. (Before re-install Mandriva I had copy the data from the extf3 of the disk that was corrupted to the new one using Mandriva 2006 Live CD)

Tomorrow morning I power on the machine. Surprise: The LILO menu didn't appear. In its place appeared a letter "L" in the line 1 column 1 of the screen and pairs of 9's till the middle of the screen and the system freezes. I'm writing you after boot via Mandriva 2006 live CD. If I define mounting points and mount the drives data seems to be ok in the partitions.

Is there a way of reconstruct the LILO entries in the way I can at least save some files of the HD?

My theory is that the new(old) disk I bought have problems and it causes troubles to the IDE controller and the controller corrupts the LILO menu. Is this theory a possible cause of the trouble?

All the troubles seems began after I install this new used disk as slave.

I forgot to say that I replace my CD recorder drive by a new LG DVD recorder drive dual layer. When I try to burn a CD with K3B the system reports no disks in drive. Is this correct? I can't burn CDs in a DVD recorder drive? Or is this error an indication os troubles with the controller? I had successfully burn 2 DVDs before the trouble with the CD burn.

Greetings from Sao Paulo - Brazil

Ricardo

P.S.: Next sunday I'll go to the store and complain about the disk, but I'd like to know if my ideas are correct.

Here is an explanation of the LILO error codes:

http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Bootdisk-HOWTO/a1483.html

Since you got an L and nothing else that means that the part of LILO on the MBR was read in successfully but the part of LILO in the Mandriva /boot directory was not read in successfully. The part of LILO that it could not find is /boot/boot.b.

Boot into the live CD and check to see if /boot/boot.b and /etc/lilo.conf are OK. If both of those files are good you can probably fix LILO.

The Mandriva live CD probably has an option to boot into an existing OS. If it does then boot the Mandriva live CD and then use it to boot into the Mandriva OS you installed on the new hard drive. Then log in and su to root. Issue the command to install LILO to the MBR:

lilo

After you re-install LILO you can try to save some of the files on this hard drive. Actually you can try to save the files even if you don't get LILO re-installed.

Your problems could be caused by having two devices installed on the same address. Check your hard drives and DVD to see if you have two masters or two slaves.

Look at the specifications for your LG DVD recorder. Will it burn both CDs and DVDs?

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Steve Stites

Hi jailbait!

The files /boot/boot.b and /etc/lilo.conf were absent. I go back to the store and leave my machine over there. They will replace the HD and the DVD writer... BUt I lost all software in the both partitions.

Thank you for your help.

Ricardo