/Boot

**DaGoomba** · 10-22-2009

I don't know how he did it, but my older brother blew up the /boot sector. Any suggestions?

**Freston** · 10-22-2009

Oops, uptime will become important to you

Don't reboot. First, is it your boot sector or your /boot directory that is affected??

If it's your /boot directory then you'll need to download the Red Hat kernel*) and rewrite menu.lst. I'm not familiar with Grub, but someone will be able to help you I should think.

At least we will need to know 1) what partition is / and 2) if you dual boot something.

I think posting the output of this command will be necessary:

Code:

mount

There may be more things affected (bootsplash for example), but with grubs menu.lst and a kernel you should be able to rebuild the thing. But if Red Hat uses an initrd (I dunno, probably not) then that'll be needed as well.

*) I looked for a second for a CentOS kernel, and I found this one for CentOS 5.4.

**DaGoomba** · 10-22-2009

Originally Posted by Freston

Oops, uptime will become important to you

Don't reboot. First, is it your boot sector or your /boot directory that is affected??

If it's your /boot directory then you'll need to download the Red Hat kernel*) and rewrite menu.lst. I'm not familiar with Grub, but someone will be able to help you I should think.

At least we will need to know 1) what partition is / and 2) if you dual boot something.

I think posting the output of this command will be necessary:

Code:

mount

There may be more things affected (bootsplash for example), but with grubs menu.lst and a kernel you should be able to rebuild the thing. But if Red Hat uses an initrd (I dunno, probably not) then that'll be needed as well.

*) I looked for a second for a CentOS kernel, and I found this one for CentOS 5.4.

Well,...Crap. I don't know what Uptime is and my brother already rebooted the computer before calling me saying it wouldn't start up anymore.

His computer doesn't dual-boot. My brother refuses to use anything but Linux.

I can't really tell you guys anything else since the computer is at an off-site location. But, the sad part is that he's supposed to be practicing for his Red Hat Certs. Is it normal to feel worried in this situation?

**yancek** · 10-22-2009

Blew up the boot sector on what? His computer? Yours? Since you are posting on a Linux forum and you say your brother refuses to use anything but Linux, I assume it's his computer? What does off-site location mean? Does anyone have physical access to it? Did you get any specific information other than "blew up the boot sector"? If he's using Grub and had a problem with it, it's usually pretty easy to fix but since we don't have any information about the computer and what's on it, it will be extremely difficult to diagnose.

**DaGoomba** · 10-22-2009

It's his own computer. I will have access to it in an hour (He lives in downtown Phoenix). It isn't GRUB, it's the actual /boot directory. It's gone. Completely. Gone.

What if I just rebuilt the machine? Would that work?

**yancek** · 10-22-2009

If he deleted the /boot directory then you should be able to just re-install the directory if he still has the installation CD. Then re-install Grub to the mbr. You didn't indicate which distribution of Linux he is using? There are over 1,000 different distribution but, maybe 20-30 that are commonly used. What does he use? Does he have a Linux Live CD? Does he have his original Install CD? Can he/you post his partition information running the command: fdisk -l (lower case Letter L) from a terminal/konsole as root? Post it.

Rebuilding? You mean re-installing the operating system? Yes, that would work if he has no needed data to save. It's kind of like using a sledge hammer to kill a gnat, not really necessary. Linux is not windows.

**DaGoomba** · 10-23-2009

He has the most god-awful filing system ever. "I toss whatever I have and wherever it lands is it's new home." I would never find the Red Hat disk in a million years nor any other disk for that matter. Also, "fdisk -l" returns nothing.

...using a sledge hammer to kill a gnat, not really necessary.

But it's fun!

**yancek** · 10-23-2009

How and where did you run the command fdisk -l? You should get output if run by root user or 'command not found' if run by a regular user. If your brother uses Linux he should know a little about running commands like fdisk, obtaining a Live CD, installation CD??

Sledgehammers are cool, I have a small (8lb) one with a yellow, plastic handle but I've never managed to kill a gnat with it.

Good Luck!

**rituraj.goswami** · 10-23-2009

well i wish you guys stop blabbing about sledgehammers and maybe try to solve the problem. look DaGoomba first find out what OS you have and reply back. if it's redhat i.e rhel that it's better. i might be able to help you. pst back.

**DaGoomba** · 10-23-2009

Originally Posted by yancek

How and where did you run the command fdisk -l? You should get output if run by root user or 'command not found' if run by a regular user. If your brother uses Linux he should know a little about running commands like fdisk, obtaining a Live CD, installation CD??

Sledgehammers are cool, I have a small (8lb) one with a yellow, plastic handle but I've never managed to kill a gnat with it.

Good Luck!

That's just the problem, he just uses Linux. He doesn't do any of the techie/nerdy stuff, that's my job.

I ran fdisk -l as the super user and all I got was a black screen with nothing on it.

Originally Posted by rituraj.goswami

well i wish you guys stop blabbing about sledgehammers and maybe try to solve the problem. look DaGoomba first find out what OS you have and reply back. if it's redhat i.e rhel that it's better. i might be able to help you. pst back.

It's rhel.

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