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So I was gently working on a perl module when a gaming fever got me. I could get CS to install on one of my windows box so I thought I'd reboot my linux box (I have a dual booot) to try to install it there. Fatal mistake!
Some details:
A rather moder P4 box with Mandrake10.0 and WinXP.
Never had much problems before.
Thought I had installled GRUB!
The problem:
I can't boot no more.
What I've done so far:
Search the net for hours.
Tryed the rescue mode, reinstalled the boot loader in 10 different ways
mounted the drives, chrooted, ran lilo -v -C /etc/lilo.conf
Tried again and again in different ways.
I simple words, I'm stuck. I first can't understand how this can happend! Second I don't know how to fix it.
Someone knowladgable please help or point at something I can read and do.
somethoing similar happened to me when i removed my linux drive, and just tried to boot my windows drive, i have it installed on two sepearte hdd's, it was fixed when i reconnected the linux drive. i dont think you removed a drive, but my general attitude, when in doubt with linux, and to get it to a working state, reinstall...
Originally posted by rossAINTfakin my general attitude, when in doubt with linux, and to get it to a working state, reinstall...
That might work if you have 3 hours to waist for reinstalling the system but I also need another 2 or three days more to reinstall all I need. I've installed the system a week ago. That makes for a very bad Installation-time/usage ratio.
I did that search but the first link didn't make me more inteligent! My situation differs in those point:
I haven't modified anything! I didn't try to add a splashscreen or whatever.
I have installed Mandrake in a very "standard" fashion and I am pretty sure Grub was installed. I usualy get a flashy graphical boot screen. I took me a while to find out it was lilo. This is one of the most bothering parts. How could I go from Grub (if it 's what I had before) to a lilo error? I'm pretty sure the mandrake installation says "installing Grub". Obviously I"m wrong and the data in the lilo.conf seem pretty much those right. This is making me crazy!
I agree with you, re-installing a system that I can obviously boot, mount partitions and access data would be a waist of time specially after taking in to account all the time spend installing other stuff by hand.
Here is a listing of the files you named:
# File generated by DrakX/drakboot
# WARNING: do not forget to run lilo after modifying this file
I got "L 9A ...." before I ever run 'lilo -v'; so the Grub/lilo question still stands.
I booted in "rescue" mode and choose the option to mount my partitions. The contents I used to have in '/' are now under 'mnt'. I have /mnt/etc, /mnt/dev ..... I did 'chroot mnt'.
I'll run the commands you proposed and come back with the results ASAP.
if you have issued the command: "lilo -v" - and it actually did something - then you have installed lilo _somewhere_ - you have the program and it wrote something to your disk when you where running it - but maybe not the right thing, since you cannot boot...
...english is not my native language - but I try to make it my friend...
It worked like a charm. Thanks a lot. I can now boot in linux and mandrake.
Still. How can this happend? That the installation says grub and I get lilo sucks but not a problem. But how can the boot loader stop loading. I _really_ didn't change a thing. I was programming on my build system.
I have two other small problems with this new installation (I'll start new theads). I doubt it is related but one never knows.
It _might_ just be that you installed grub to boot and it pointed to lilo, which was installed on /dev/hda5 - this would be really weird, but - who knows?
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