Hosed Grub with the push of a button

[max bianco]

On Thu, Apr 17, 2008 at 6:59 AM, Jim Cornette
<fc-cornette at insight.rr.com> wrote:
> max wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >
> > max wrote:
> >
> > > max wrote:
> > >
> > > > Jim Webb wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > max wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > I hosed grub. I need to fix it. I booted from fedora rescue. I
> chroot to /mnt/sysimage. All good. I tried :
> > > > > >
> > > > > > grub-install  /dev/sda
> > > > > >
> > > > > > The  file /boot/grub/stage1 not read correctly
> > > > > >
> > > > > > tried:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > grub-install /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
> > > > > >
> > > > > > The file /boot/grub/stage1 not read correctly
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > tried:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > cd /boot/grub
> > > > > >
> > > > > > cat stage1
> > > > > >
> > > > > > output maybe human readable by some humans but not this one.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > So far I can still see all the user files so I can backup and
> reinstall but that wouldn't teach me anything.
> > > > > > All suggestions/insults/how-to's welcome.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Max
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > Max,
> > > > > I looked this up on Red Hat's KBase:
> > > > >
> > > > >
> http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-5-manual/en-US/RHEL510/Installation_Guide/s2-rescuemode-boot-reinstall-bootloader.html
> > > > >
> > > > > Hope this helps,
> > > > > Jim
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > Thanks for the link but i had tried that and it didn't work. The
> following explains why but I don't see an easy way to do it, i'll do it the
> hard way , its the only option left, I need some help on best method or
> whether its even possible.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >  From rescue cd, l let me outline what i see like a terminal :
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> > I finally wised up and ran fdsik -l ( it aint pretty):
> >
> > sh-3.2#fdisk -l
> >
> > Device        Boot            Start        End        Blocks        Id
> System
> > /dev/sda1     *            30076         30401       2618563         c
> W95 FAT32(LBA)
> > /dev/sda2                    26        30401          243995220        8e
> Linux LVM
> >
> > Partition table entries are not in disk order.
> >
> > I really could use a few pointers here as I am not sure that its even
> possible to recover at this point. I wish I'd have thought to run this
> command sooner, course i'd not have learned some of the handy info I've
> picked up since I touched off this mess so I guess I've broken even, not bad
> but I'd still like to think I could come out ahead on this one or should I
> just backup and install/upgrade to Sulphur.
> >
> >
> >
> > Max
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>  It looks to me that the FAT partition is in portions that the LVM occupies.
> You don't have 0 through 25 occupied. I don't know if this was where your
> /boot partition was or not.
>
the answers are yes and yes.
>  DANGER, This may not work:
>  What I would do is to run fdisk /dev/sda and delete the FAT partition and
> then try to create a new partition for 0 to 25 for boot as EXT3. Then I
> would format the partition ext3 and make an entry in fstab that would mount
> this partition as /boot using the label.
>  Then I would take the install disk and select upgrade the system. Anaconda
> should install a new kernel and setup grub. Hopefully it will not downgrade
> any programs like it did several releases back, FC5 I believe.
>  Of course backing up info you want to save to flash, tape or disk would
> probably be best before attempting maybe disastrous trials.
>
That sounds reasonable but as you point out the FAT partition now
occupies part of the LVM. I am wondering what kind of problems that
will cause during an upgrade. I will back up the the few critical
things, luckily there isn't much as the laptop is only a month or
two(maybe) old, though I would like to restore F8 to working order at
this point simply as a learning excercise, that parts of the LVM will
be unreadable will impact this certainly but it looks like only the
tail end is screwed, which would explain why I couldn't list the
contents of some directories, they only contain mp3s, easily
replaceable, but the rest of the user info appears to be intact so
maybe i will come out ahead after all. Once I get this mess
straightened out, but before I upgrade to Sulphur, I am going to find
out how deeply embedded this stupid Dell Media Direct Button is  in
the system and try to nuke it. The thing is it should not have
survived the installation of Werewolf, could this thing be linked to
the BIOS? or was it a hidden partition? I used the entire drive to
install F8, I explicitly indicated that the entire drive should be
used, that all existing partitions should be deleted/removed. Looks
like I have some homework to do.

Thanks

Max