Repair Install?

[tucker007]

We have a small file server running debian with ~ 40GB of data. The motherboard cratered, and we can't get a replacement. So we set up a new box and moved the old hd over.

The system boots fine, and all appears well, other than the fact that the network card(s) won't work.

Is there any way to run a "repair" install to update to the latest version without losing configuration - like users and group accounts?

I'm hoping that the update/repair/whatever you want to call it will support the network card.

The HD has 2 partitions - sda1 contains the OS, sda6 is the /home dir where data is stored. I'm hoping that by running a repair/re-install I won't lose data on /home. (i did already backup this data to another drive on the network) I am concerned about losing settings though - ie) samba and misc others.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

If more detail is required, I can provide it. This post is a bit general I know.

[Vergil83]

You say the network cards don't work? How are they set up? Do you get an ip by dhcp, static ip, etc...?

[tucker007]

They would be DHCP - but the OS doesn't even find them. eth0 and eth1 aren't available

[iwanabeguru]

maybe the driver not loaded,
or your kernel not contains it, find out which driver do you need and try load it with modprobe, and chechk the udev rules in /etc/udev/rules directory , looking for a file "z25_persistent_net.rules"

good luck

[Vergil83]

what happens if you run

ifup eth0