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Rewriting Linux bootloader

Vehementi
11-27-2003, 09:31 PM
Hello all,

Here's my problem: Windows rewrote my MBR after installing a different version on a different partition, and now I can't access Linux. I didn't make a boot floppy (:D) and even booting from the (seperate) hard drive Linux is on gets a "Error loading operating system". Can I re-write LILO to the MBR through linux rescue?

MattG
11-27-2003, 10:35 PM
We will need to know what flavor your using....you might be able to boot off the CD, mount the linux partition through that and just run linuxconf or liloconfig -- i know that is the case with slackware 9.

Ad
11-27-2003, 10:35 PM

Phantasm66
11-28-2003, 06:12 AM
boot from linux CD, type "linux rescue" at the prompt.

Let it automatically mount your / partition, which it will do under a mount point of /mnt/sysimage . the actual system you are seeing exists in RAM only, but its mounted your old system (which IS on HDD) as /mnt/sysimage.

Now, issue this command to make /mnt/sysimage the new /

chroot /mnt/sysimage

now, assuming you want the same LILO as before:

/sbin/lilo

now get out

exit

exit

until machine reboots.

Vehementi
11-30-2003, 03:22 PM
Ah thank you Phant! Everything is all fine and well now.

Phantasm66
11-30-2003, 04:38 PM
heehhe cool!

Actually, I think you can combine the two commands into one:

chroot /mnt/sysimage /sbin/lilo

would do the trick as well, I think.

Take care,

P66.

Samael
06-17-2005, 09:08 PM
i recently installed linux mandrake 9.1 onto an 8.5 gig partition of a 40GB HD, some how the boot loader got messed up so i went into rescue to have it re write it; the problem is though that it targeted the MBR on my Western Digital 200GB HD and now it looks like an 8.5GB HD and i cant access anything, none of the drives are listed on the 200GB HD, however it does show up in the windows device manager; is there any utilities or some way of restoring the factory MBR? bios shows the same thing. any kind of help is appreciated more than i can say.

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