Unbootable Dell - Must reinstall Lilo; how from CD?

Help!

I'm an idiot. I can't boot my Dell. Here are the particulars: Dell Latitude D600 notebook. 40 gig hard drive with the following on it:

[Lilo bootloader] WinXP_copy1, WinXP_copy2, Knoppix_on_HD, FAT_Data_Partition

Here is what I did: I tried to use Norton Ghost to back up WinXP_copy1 while booted into WinXP_copy1. When you tell Ghost to backup, it seems to leave something on the MBR to tell itself to boot into some kind of virtual partition it creates. In the past I have imaged both copies of WinXP but always while booted into WinXP_copy2 - so it didn't damage Lilo. This time, for no reason in particular, I tried to ask the 'copy1' Ghost to do it, and when I boot all I get is

"Missing Operating System"

I also tried to load Partition Magic and as has happened in the past, it says it can't even read the partition table (this usually means that I have trashed the MBR somehow).

The good news is a still have my Knoppix live CD available. Question: given that I need to reinstall Lilo, is there any way to do it from the Knoppix live CD?

You are correct. Using Ghost from within WindowsXP will make Ghost edit the boot.ini and perhaps even edit the MBR.

Boot with the Knoppix CD. I use cheatcodes

Code:

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knoppix 2 vga=normal

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but you can boot up however you see if. Gain root access

Code:

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su -

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Mount the Knoppix HD install partition (I will assume it is /dev/hda3)

Code:

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mount -t ext3 /dev/hda3 /mnt/hda3

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Run lilo with the following extensions to put lilo back into the MBR as you bootloader.

Code:

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lilo -v -C /mnt/hda3/etc/lilo.conf -r /mnt/hda3

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If that was successful, unmount the Knoppix HD partition

Code:

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umount /mnt/hda3

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Then reboot the PC from the KDE menu or use the command:

Code:

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init 6

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If the MBR and the partition tables is totally trashed then a program that is included on the Knoppix disk, gpart http://www.stud.uni-hannover.de/user/76201/gpart/, can be a real life saver.
If anything goes wrong, either me or someone else can help you.
James

Thanks a million! I will print out your instructions and post back either way for the benefit of others.

It looks like my system as the Knoppix install as hda5. I was able to mount if find but when I tried

lilo -v -C /mnt/hda5/etc/lilo.conf.....etc

The system returned "/mnt/hda5/etc/lilo.conf no such file or directory"

The really strange part is that if I

cat /mnt/hda5/etc/lilo.conf

I get a full read out of the file and ls sees it too. Any ideas?

Edits: I also do not see the FAT data partition as being available at all for mounting, and there is an hda4 that is unmountable for some reason (the system says it doesn't understand the file system type).

Edit: I ran gpart and it shows the two Windows NTFS partitions, and a DOS partition, but then shows a 4th partition as being unused - presumably this is the Linux (or was!)

Looks like I trashed my partition table pretty good eh? I had quite a few hours in my Knoppix HD installation so I'd like to recover if it possible but this look bleak, doesn't it? I'm more concerned about recovering the first of the Windows XP partitions since the school customized that copy of Windows quite a bit. Would the Windows rescue disk and FixMBR be likely to at least get me back into Windows at this stage to cover that partition or am I hosed?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jeopardyracing

.... it says it can't even read the partition table (this usually means that I have trashed the MBR somehow). ....

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I'm not sure about lilo, would trust James for that. But you could put a Microsoft MBR back on the disk's MBR by booting a recovery floppy and typing the command "fdisk /MBR". I rather afraid that it could be more than the MBR that is damaged, but if it's only that then this would get Windows back and you would at least know where you stand in trying to get lilo reinstalled.

I would also think you might look to Norton for some support on this, it seems likely that they have run across it a time or two before.

Hmmmm try this as another way of acccessing lilo:
Gain root access

Code:

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su -

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Mount the Knoppix HD install partition

Code:

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mount -t ext3 /dev/hda5 /mnt/hda5

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Chroot into the Linux partition:

Code:

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chroot /mnt/hda5 /bin/bash

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Then run lilo

Code:

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/sbin/lilo

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If either the chroot fails or the lilo fails, then there is probably something wrong with the partition table.

Yeah, tried that too and got the same result - no such file or directory

I even tried to create a symbolic link to the file before I tried chroot, same result. I also used cp to copy it to / (again prior to chroot) and had the same result.

Rats! Lots of hours configuring Knopp lost. Good thing I kept good notes. Maybe this is my reason to upgrade to 3.7.

Edit: tried the Windows rescue CD and one copy of Windows couldn't recognize my admin password while another did. It didn't understand fdisk /MBR but it did understand FIXBOOT. Nothin' doing though: when I tried to reboot all I got was a message "NTLDR Missing."

Thanks very much for your help everyone. And guess what: I backed up all my user data last night to my Mac (on which I am working now) so no user data was lost in the accident, just 3 operating systems. I really had Knopp 3.6 running well too - even had updated the wireless drivers.

For the benefit of others: stay away from Norton Ghost when using a Knoppix / WinXP dual boot! It does work okay if the 2nd of two Windows copies takes the image, but not if the first does (for whatever mysterious reason).

Time to reimage the drive.

You could try parted, qtparted, cfdisk or Linux fdisk from the Knoppix CD to repair the partition table. No guarantees of results though. I don't use Norton at all any more since it tends to overpower everything else...but then I hardly ever use Windows any more so (and never on line with it) so I can get away without all Norton's backup stuff & virus protection.