Hard drive problems

mario8723 · 03-12-2005, 01:54 AM

Okay here goes...

I currently have 2 machines...One is a dual-boot (XP and Ubuntu Hoary 5.04) which is working fine for the most part (outside of the fact that I can't get sound)

The other machine is an old PIII 650 that I want to setup as a LRP. I have 2 HDs in there, one 8GB the other 60GB. Both had Suse 8.2 installed.

Well I wanted to install Smoothwall Express2, so like the dumbass I am, I decided it would be a great idea to delete all partitions.

Now, when I boot, I only get the Grub prompt:
grub>

No CD will load itself upon boot, including the original Suse disk.

What, if anything, can I do at this point to a)repartition the drive(s) so I can install Smoothwall or b)format the drive entirely?

Thanks for any help!

JaseP · 03-12-2005, 02:09 AM

You might be able to partition and format the drives from the P III by temporarily installing them on the other machine,... and using Parted or some other tool to fix `em up...

mario8723 · 03-12-2005, 02:12 AM

Interesting idea...Outside of installing the drive on the other machine, how would I go about that?

JaseP · 03-12-2005, 03:41 AM

You need a bootable device that can boot into Linux.

If you don't have a Linux floppy boot disk or your MoBo is not capable of booting from CD-ROM or USB device, you are SOL... except maybe to boot from an ethernet device...

I'd question whether a PIII machine is able to boot from anything other than an HD or CD drive...

mario8723 · 03-12-2005, 03:14 PM

Currently, I have the boot order as CD-ROM, A, C. The problem is, what do I put in there that will work upon rebooting? I've inserted the actual Suse disk, a Gentoo disk, hell I even put a Western Digital Tools floppy that I got with the drive. Nothing is reckognized at boot and I just keep getting dumped into Grub. Any ideas?

mario8723 · 03-12-2005, 06:24 PM

Does anybody think that using a Knoppix or other distro Live CD would work? Does that have a partitioning program built into it that maybe I could use to take care of the problem?

dj_dubbbz · 03-12-2005, 08:41 PM

Intresting...If your boot order is CD, A, C, you shouldn't have any problems booting from a floppy or CD to a formatting tool. Knoppix would work (it has QTParted which would format the drive), but if you can't boot from CD or Floppy, it is won't do any good. I still don't get why it won't respond to any kind of bootable media.

You might try resetting your bios, it just be some odd setting. I doubt that though.

If that doesn't work, I'd agree with JaseP when he says to remove it and install it in the other machine, format it, and put it back.

Anywhooo...

That's my 2 cents
_____
Dj_dubbz

mario8723 · 03-12-2005, 11:01 PM

How would I go about formatting it from within Linux if I installed it in the other machine?

JaseP · 03-12-2005, 11:06 PM

Depends which distro... Mandrake has DiskDrake. Parted will work as well from most distros. Other distros have formating/partitioning tools.

mario8723 · 03-12-2005, 11:16 PM

Right now I'm dowloading the Knoppix ISO. We'll see how that goes.

I'm not concerned with any of the data (luckily) on the 2 HDs, and this is turning out to be a good learning exercise. Worst comes to worst, I'll just buy a new drive-I saw 40GB drives listed for under $50 on NewEgg. I just think that the 8GB drive would be ideal for the SmoothWall that I want to install.

Speaking of, does anybody here (I'm sure I already know the answer) use a LRP and/or SmoothWall? I'm interested to see how they like it. From what I understand, it's a very nice way to lock down your system. Any comments/suggestions would be appreciated...