Accidentally installed over sda (main OS) - now can't boot - help!

[niM_xaM]

Hi Guys,

I was very excited to get knoppix 6.4 from the recent LinuxMag, and decided to install it on my flash disk using the "install to flash disk" utility. However, at the screen where I was supposed to select my flash card (sdb), I accidentally clicked on my laptop's harddisk (sda)! (Argh! dang this slippery mouse!)

A split second later, realizing I've made a mistake, I tried to cancel the installation but I couldn't (there's no stop/cancel button), I quickly clicked the close window button, which made the window disappear but not the process apparently. A few secs later up pops another window reporting the installation errors... bummer..!

I then shutdown my laptop and tried to boot up as usual, hoping for the best, but noo0..! I couldn't boot up! (argh! dang this cheap slippery mouse!)

Now I get an error message saying:

SYSLINUX 4.02 debian-20101014 EDD Copyright (C) 1994-2010 H. Peter Anvin et al
ERROR: No configuration file found
No DEFAULT or UI configuration directive found!
boot:_

and it just hangs there with a blinking cursor...

Help guys! How can I rescue my laptop back? I had Mint 9 and Windows Vista on it - and I'm fairly new to Linux (know a few simple commands to copy and remove files at the cli but nothing much beyond that, GRUB, partitioning and boot-up problems are definitely not my league) Please, a detailed step-by-step guide wd be very much appreciated!

Please help!

Panicked penguin

[rusty]

Boot up either the Knoppix or Mint CD and try tesdisk (http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step). There's a good chance that the data on the drive is recoverable, although rebuilding the partition table may or may not be possible.

Good luck.

[niM_xaM]

Thanks for replying rusty, I got it fixed and am now back to normal :mrgreen:

Followed the instructuions in the testdisk link and it seems that all the partitions can be successfully recognized.. there's no corrupt partitions or anything, so I thought maybe its just the GRUB.. Anyway, i took a peek into the first partition (DELL utilities) and saw some KNOPPIX files there (there's the KNOPPIX folder at least), not sure if its safe to delete it so I left it there for the time being, quit from testdisk without writing, and tried the steps to fix GRUB i found from another site:

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=61209#p350653

basically, what I did was (who know this might help other ppl):
boot with Live Mint CD, mount the harddisk install Mint partition, obtain its UUID (via sudo blkid), then run (sudo grub-setup -d /media/PUT_UUID_HERE/boot/grub /dev/sda), and reboot and run (sudo update-grub) afterwards to tidy the GRUB up. It worked like a charm :)

Oh by the way, stay away from "PowerLogic Zen III LZ" (if anybody ever see them) mouse! It is smooth very high dpi but also very very light in terms of physical weight, and this makes it very unstable prone to nudges and shakes.. its possibly catastrophic to use something like that.. high dpi isnt everything.. I've learned my lesson LOL

niM_xaM