Help Accidently deleted /var/*

[varun2784]

Hi
I am an arsehole .I logged into my system as root and since I was running out of disk space I deleted everything that was in /var .Now when I rebooted mu system I got a lot of messages and it hangs at "starting system logger" for 5 minutes before showing up the login prompt.I can't either start the xserver.
Please help I don't want to reinstall .
Varun

[fingal]

Please help I don't want to reinstall .
Varun

I think you'll be forced to do that. I can't think of a way to fix it otherwise ... unless .... maybe.

Okay, this is me improvising. Get hold of a Knoppix CD/DVD, boot from that (means changing your boot order in your BIOS) ... Errrrm ... Somehow, as root, copy your /var/ files over into your other OS. It could work, it could completely stuff up your system. But it's already stuffed up so perhaps it doesn't matter.

EDIT: This could turn out to be a silly idea because there will almost certainly be some files in Knoppix /var/ intended only for that distro. Still, it might be interesting.

[budman7]

Try using your install cd to do a repair.
It's been awhile since I have used Mandriva/Mandrake, but with some distros they have a repair option when you boot up.
If the repair option is not there, try "upgrading".
All of your personal files will be left untouched.

[bigtomrodney]

Fingal's idea could work if you used a Mandriva based live disc, and there are a few. Mandows springs to mind but it's in french by default. I remember really badly screwing a system up by having some files in /var get deleted. I intended removing lock files and took out the whole system. As far as I remember the recovery option in Mandriva is just a running bash console, but you may have enough to get some of the essential /var files back. I would guess that contents of the lock, log and run directories are what you need, but I'm not expert on this.