lilo reinstallation on resierfs

lord-fu · 10-02-2006, 11:17 AM

Hello,

I woke up this morning and was greeted with a machine that was down as well as a nice
Please select proper device or insert media into selected boot device error message.
Bios picks up all drives, boot sequence is correct and I can see them in cfdisk as well, so I am assuming lilo has gone on vacation somehow.
I have tried to reinstall lilo but I am not mounting my / partition. I try and pass
bare.i root=/dev/hda2
at the boot prompt off of the slack cd but my root partition is never mounted.

Code:

/dev/hda5        swap             swap        defaults         0   0
/dev/hda2        /                reiserfs    defaults         1   1
/dev/hda6        /home            reiserfs    defaults         1   2
/dev/hdc        /mnt/dvd         auto        noauto,users,ro  0   0
/dev/hdd        /mnt/dvdrw       auto        noauto,users,rw  0   0
/dev/fd0         /mnt/floppy      auto        noauto,users,rw  0   0
devpts           /dev/pts         devpts      gid=5,mode=620   0   0
proc             /proc            proc        defaults         0   0
/dev/sda1        /mnt/thebadass   ext3        auto,users,rw    0   0
/dev/sdb1        /mnt/theplayer   ext3        auto,users,rw    0   0

What do I have to do to load a kernel with resierfs so I can mount /, etc? I may have fscked my system trying to get lilo back in today, I actually did a few configurations off the setup , but its worth a shot if I can mount / and run /sbin/lilo.
I have never had to do something like this so please forgive me If I am doing something obviously wrong.
Sorry if I havent posted enough info, but I am halfway out the door on the way to work right now. I appreciate any help offered.

ps: I do realize this may just be that my hard drive has died :[ but I have not noticed any errors in my logs.

Carpo · 10-02-2006, 11:59 AM

try this if using a 2.6.x kernel

boot from the cd - using bare.i root=/dev/hda2 nointrd ro
then make new lilo
then make initrd using mkinitrd -c -k 2.x (eg 2.6.17.13) -m resierfs (in /boot dir)

then edit lilo adding initrd = /boot/initrd.gz

if using a 2.4 kernel - im not sure as i havent used a 2.4 kernel in a while

lord-fu · 10-02-2006, 12:33 PM

Hello,

Thank you for the response. I will try as soon as I get home.

Yes I do use a 2.6 kernel.

Quote:

boot from the cd - using bare.i root=/dev/hda2 nointrd ro

I have done this part of your post
bare.i root=/dev/hda2
That however does not mount my / partition, so I cannot run /sbin/lilo.
Is there something about nointrd ro that will allow my partition to be mounted?

Many thanks.

Carpo · 10-02-2006, 12:35 PM

try bare.i root=/dev/hda2 nointrd rw - this should allow reading and writing to the drive

also check with cfdisk /dev/hda2 and see if its set as bootable - maybe something has changed this - or your drive is on the way out

lord-fu · 10-02-2006, 06:56 PM

Just a note for anyone who may search this thread out.
I was able to mount my drive and lilo was fine; pointing to the correct places at least, however the error appears at every reboot...so I guess my hdd failed. I am in the process of reinstalling now. Just one mention the command above should be
bare.i root=/dev/hda2 noinitrd ro
not intrd

lord-fu · 10-02-2006, 09:18 PM

Hello,

Sorry for the repost, just wanted to update.
I had a spare drive laying around so I reinstalled to that one. I recieved the same erros on a brand new install on a fresh drive.
I looked in my bios one more time, but this time really payed attention to the boot order and drives. All my drives are western digitals, I looked inside the case at the hard drives and noticed that my boot sequence WAS wrong. Don't know how that happened because of a power outtage but it did.
Put my old drive back in, and voila, alls good.
All in all it wasn't that bad...learned a few things...have slack installed on another drive just sitting here..and had a reason to drink an excessive amount of caffeine today.