[Gllug] possible boot sector corruption

[Stephen de Vries]

I've had this happen a number of times.  As suggested in the other
replies, it's probably a good idea to wipe the mbr with fdisk /mbr, but
you may be able to save your system without reinstalling.  If you created
a linux rescue disk (I mean _everyone_ creates rescue disks...), you can
boot with that, at the boot prompt type: 

linux root=/dev/hda1

The /dev/hd?? is the device your linux is installed on.  If you don't know
which device it's installed on you can figure it out like this: Usually h
for
ide drives s for scusi (sp?), always d, for the first disk use a, for the
second use b, etc. 1 for the partition number.

So 2 partition ide drive with win95 in the first and linux on second will
be:
/dev/hda2

2 partition ide with win95 in the first and linux in the first logical
drive of an extended partition:
/dev/hda4 (i think..) the extended partition uses 2, something else uses
3.

Anyway,  linux root=/dev/hd?? will boot the kernel you've supplied (from
either the rescue disk or CDrom or some other linux boot floppy) and try
and mount the root partition on the specified device.  If it successfully
mounts the drive, you'll have your full linux system at your
disposal.  run /sbin/lilo to reinstall the lilo boot loader.  Remember to
always run lilo after changing /etc/lilo.conf.

It it works you should be able to dual boot your system.  If it doesn't
happy reinstalling.

You could trawl the net for linux boot disks that suite your
configuration. RH6.0 supplied one on the CD.


Stephen


 On Fri, 4 Feb 2000, Sparky
wrote:

> Hi
> 
> The inevitable happened last night, after all my messing around with 
> Linux, my partition table got messed up, so i deleted it (stupidly, 
> in hindsight). I've decided to install a dual boot Win95 + Linux 
> system, rather than just linux, but whenever I try to install win95, 
> the computer loads, and freezes after I get a "LI" at boot up time. 
> Anyone know how to get rid of this LI message and/or reinstall or 
> simply delete  the MBR or boot sector?
> 
> Sparky
> 
> 
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