I need some help to fix this problem.
I used V-COM "Copy Commander" to copy my Debian 3.0 to a larger new drive. (1): Boot from Copy Com. CD-ROM (2): partition and format new drive with same partition layout as old disk, only larger partitions (except the two SWAP). (3): Copy drive 0 to 1 using Copy Com. (4): Shutdown computer after completion prompt, remove cables from old hard drive, change drive jumper to MASTER, install power and data cable, reboot (5) Change BIOS from CDROM
as first boot dev, exit BIOS setup with SAVE (6): after the normal bios detection run GRUB Boot list came up, selected Debian 3.0/Testing 2.4.19-k6.
(7): The following error:
root (hd0,0)
Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.19-k6
root=/dev/hda1 ro

error 13 Invalid or unsupported executable format

I removed the new 80g. hard drive and reinstalled the old one and rebooted to
send this querry. I also did an apt-get install grub to get the newest version off Testing in case that is the difficulty. Any ideas? I,ve never been able to make a GRUB boot floppy, I think that for some reason my boot image is not in a .bz nor .z format which makes the image too large for a floppy.
tia. matt

The boot loader (either lilo or grub) uses the exact physical address of the kernel when booting. When you copied everything to a different disk the kernel most likely copied to a different disk address. So you need to run the grub initialization procedure that installs a new MBR on the new disk, not because it is a new disk but because the kernel has moved.

Okay, if I understand you correctly:
original /dev/hda1 of 321mb versus new /dev/hda1 of 610mb has the data in different physical locations. Yes?
Now what do you recommend as to the method one may employ to run GRUB update? In as much as the kernel does not begin to boot, I assume that one needs a boot disk made from the orignal hard drive, or a copy of GRUB to install. Any ideas how best to proceed? tia, matt

May I suggest reading this article which may help. I have used Drive image in the past to re-install Debian with no problem. What is essential is a floppy boot disk to get at the kernel.

Okay, I am curious though, in as much as the GRUB menu.lst does come up and the error 13 is a GRUB specific error, does this perhaps mean that one might be able to run 'grub update' at the prompt to initiaize it? Any way it looks as though I MUST first find out why I am unable to make a GRUB boot floppy and fix that first. The last time I tried to make the floppy the files were too large for one floppy and aborted out. I know that the /boot/initrd.img-2.4.19-k6 is not compressed (.gz or .bz2), neither is vmlinuz. I'll muck about reading the doc's, while hoping for enlightened guidance from you all. tia, matt

Many distributions have a rescue mode on their install CD. SuSE does and I have used it sometimes instead of a boot floppy when I destroy lilo.

If your Debian or Red Hat has a rescue mode on their install CD then you could create your new disk, boot the install disk into rescue mode, chroot to your new disk (the rescue mode should do this with a menu entry), and then configure grub on your new disk.

I use
http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/~purschke/RescueCD/

I routinely move systems around, actually clone many systems from a master installation. I need to run lilo (or grub) afterwards in a rescue system, obviously, as many posters noted.

M.

Okay! I think even I will be able to wrangle a fix from these two suggestions. (a): I check the Debian 3.0r1 disks that I recently purchased for a rescue method/image/bootable system. (b): I will definietly get the http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/~purschke/RescueCD/ and the Forensics Toolkit CD. tia, Matt