installing lili or grub

[Superstoned]

hi! I just blew up my mbr, and I want to use knoppix to reinstall lilo. but I get loads of permission denied and unable to open-errors. I can mount /dev/hda7, (my reiserfs linux root partition) but cant change hda's mbr... help??? how can I clean the mbr, and install a new one, using knoppix?

btw: using lilo, it tells me: Fatal: unable to open /dev/hda: permission denied.
all disks are set writable...

please help!

[Stephen]

hi! I just blew up my mbr, and I want to use knoppix to reinstall lilo. but I get loads of permission denied and unable to open-errors. I can mount /dev/hda7, (my reiserfs linux root partition) but cant change hda's mbr... help??? how can I clean the mbr, and install a new one, using knoppix?

btw: using lilo, it tells me: Fatal: unable to open /dev/hda: permission denied.
all disks are set writable...

please help!

What command are you using it should be something like sudo chroot /mnt/hda7 /sbin/lilo -v after having mounted the /dev/hda7 as /mnt/hda7.

[Superstoned]

I'll try your command... (but I worked from a root shell, so sudo shouldnt be needed?)

[Superstoned]

yep yep: (using your command, all disks writable and mounted)

Reading boot sector from /dev/hda
Fatal: open /dev/hda: Permission denied

[Superstoned]

btw tnx for the reply ;-)

[Superstoned]

liloconf gives almost the same error:

(...)
Checking your /etc/lilo.conf for incompatible options...

Install a boot block using your current LILO configuration? [Yes] y

(...)
Running lilo...
(...)


Reading boot sector from /dev/hda
Fatal: open /dev/hda: Permission denied

ERROR: correct /etc/lilo.conf manually and rerun /sbin/lilo

(i use the lilo.conf that still was on my hd, which should work!?!?)

[Superstoned]

I've just tried lilo -M /dev/hda /mnt/hda7/etc/lilo.conf
and this worked - at least, lilo told me: MBR updated. I hope this is enough... I'm goin' to reboot, hope it works. If not, I first get some sleep, work tomorow, and I'll be back next night...

tnx for reply's

[Fabianx]

yep yep: (using your command, all disks writable and mounted)

Reading boot sector from /dev/hda
Fatal: open /dev/hda: Permission denied

sorry, just saw that.

The trick is that things are mounted with nodev as default ...

so you have to do as root:

mount /dev/hdaX /mnt/hdaX
chroot /mnt/hdaX
lilo

And it does work.

Did not only me cost me nerves to find this out.

cu

Fabian

[Superstoned]

tnx! pitty I just formatted the disk, and am reinstalling... btw the new knoppix-iso is still giving troubles, a friend of mine told me he had to convert the file to a .bin, then back to iso - before he was able to burn it. there IS something wrong with the iso...

[Arthas]

hi superstoned :)

check this http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=22656#22656
I hope they see there is something wrong.
or else we have a very strange problem which can fake md5 :lol:

[johndoesacc]

I had kinda the same problem and it seemed that setting dev as an option and not nodev worked... Well, i am yet to reboot and check, plus i don't know if the warning is gonna affect anything... i hope it works... thx for the help guys...




root@ttyp0[knoppix]# mount -o nodev /mnt/hda2
root@ttyp0[knoppix]# chroot /mnt/hda2/ lilo
Fatal: open /dev/hda: Permission denied
root@ttyp0[knoppix]# umount /mnt/hda2
root@ttyp0[knoppix]# mount -o dev /mnt/hda2
root@ttyp0[knoppix]# chroot /mnt/hda2/ lilo
Warning: '/proc/partitions' does not exist, disk scan bypassed
Added Linux *
Added LinuxOLD

[johndoesacc]

It worked like a charm...

I'd wish people would add these forum results to the error messages when it happens... It would be nice if every error message had a link to a index of forum threads regarding that particular error or if it had possible solutions... In this case it could have said "you might have to mount it with dev" or "the device isn't mounted with the dev option"... Oh, well. I guess we all dream of an age where linux is easy and friendly at first and AFTERWARDS has the possibilities it has now...