How do a fix a non working kernel installation ?

Thu Jul 16 17:33:11 UTC 2009

On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 1:19 AM, Seann Clark <nombrandue at tsukinokage.net>wrote:

> linux guy wrote:
>
>> No joy.  All I got was the same blinking cursor.  I'm running from the
>> F9 Live CD.
>>
>> BTW: chroot above was actually /usr/sbin/chroot.   And the yum problem
>> with the repos wasn't the repos at all.  The chroot session doesn't
>> have access to the network.  ping www.google.com returns "unknown
>> host" in the chroot session, whereas its found from a non chroot
>> session.
>>
>> yum -C list kernel shows only the two F11 kernels.  The F12 kernel is
>> gone.
>>
>> However, if I look at grub. conf in /media/-/boot, the entry for the
>> F12 kernel is still there !  Furthermore so are the F12 kernel files.
>>  So I am guessing that rpm didn't remove any of the actual files, even
>> though it seems to have removed all of the database entries.  GREAT !
>> I've got a mess on my hands.
>>
>> This makes sense, because if I do a cd /boot from the chroot session,
>> it shows a blank directory.   However, if I cd to /media/-/boot, its
>> definitely not empty.
>>
>> I think I need to link the /boot directory to /media/-/boot and then
>> to an rpm -i against the F12 kernel rpm to reinstall the entries into
>> the database and then do a rpm -e to actually remove the files.
>>
>> Does that make sense ?  Is there an easier way ?
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>>
>> HOWEVER....
>>
>> On 7/16/09, linux guy <linuxguy123 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> I think I got it fixed.  Here is what I did in case someone needs it
>>> someday
>>> :)
>>>
>>> - booted F9 Live.  Just because I had it around.
>>> - opened Dolphin, because it displays the hard drives for the machine
>>> - opened a terminal in Dolphin
>>> - browse to the root directory of the hard drive
>>> - did a pwd in the terminal and found the root of my hard drive was
>>> /media/-/
>>> - su
>>> - chroot /media/-/
>>> - yum -C list kernel  <- did -C because the Fedora repos seem to be
>>> messed up again, thus I only used the local cache data
>>> - yum -C remove kernel-2.6.31-0.69.rc3.fc12
>>> - this resulted in an error due to some unrelated pooched dependencies.
>>> - rpm -e kernel-2.6.31-0.69.rc3.fc12
>>> - this resulted in an error due to some unrelated pooched dependencies
>>> - rpm --nodeps -e kernel-2.6.31-0.69.rc3.fc12
>>> - rpm -e kernel-firmware-2.6.31-0.69.rc3.fc12
>>>
>>> I will now reboot and see if my system runs.  I'll report back in a
>>> bit if it does.
>>>
>>> On 7/16/09, linux guy <linuxguy123 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Will chroot work when the target system has a broken kernel ?   It
>>>> keeps running the old kernel ?
>>>>
>>>> I tried using rpm with --dbpath so that it used the F11 rpm data.  It
>>>> wouldn't run because of incompatible rpm versions.
>>>>
>>>> On 7/16/09, davide <lists4davide at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> linux guy <linuxguy123 <at> gmail.com> writes:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>  I am now running from a Fedora 9 live CD I had laying around.  I can
>>>>>>  see the hard drive and its partitions from the live session.  How
>>>>>>  would I fix the F11 installation so it runs again ?  Is it possible
>>>>>> to
>>>>>>  do an rpm -e on the non running F11 partition from the F9 live
>>>>>> session
>>>>>>  ?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> You can take control of the installed linux from a live cd with the
>>>>> chroot
>>>>> command using the command line.
>>>>> But you should know what you are doing.
>>>>> Basically it is very simple and powerful, but for this reason you can
>>>>> also
>>>>> break
>>>>> your system.
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> fedora-list mailing list
>>>>> fedora-list at redhat.com
>>>>> To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
>>>>> Guidelines:
>>>>> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>
>>
> To fix Grub fast and easy, after editing the kernel grouping, or anything
> else out of  /boot/grub/grub.conf, you can grab a livecd that works good on
> fixing a broken grub boot, called super grub disk (I have used it plenty of
> times when a borked boot of a fedora box happened to me) and it works great.
>  Biggest thing I can think of is edit grub.conf, and change the default to a
> known good kernel and remove the bad kernel out. That is to say you have a
> good one you can boot off of still on the system....
>
> ~Seann
>
> --
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>
It definately seems like your grub configuration was "borked" and not much
more.  The files of your previous versions are still there (it seems as the
directory is populated with many files) and in their proper place (though
when using the live CD you see them under /media....) so you need to add one
of the older kernel entries back into your grub.con file pointing to the
normal location.  I wil post here the latest entry for my grub.conf and you
can substitute your kernel version specifics as needed....
# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
# root (hd0,0)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
# initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/sda
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Fedora (2.6.29.5-191.fc11.i586)
  root (hd0,0)
  kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.29.5-191.fc11.i586 ro
root=UUID=ec9b81f9-3160-4b45-9d1b-f42c934fbb60 rhgb quiet vga=0x318
  initrd /initrd-2.6.29.5-191.fc11.i586.img
I hope that this helps and you do not end up going through a much more
painful clean re-install process.  I suspect that all you do need to do is
to make an appropriate grub.conf file with your existing kernel and init
image file entries located in /media/-/boot/.  The real location on booting
without the liveCD will be in /boot/.  Of course your grub loader located on
the MBR might also have an issue and there, hopefully, the live cd should
have some way to reinitialize the mbr with the grub loader.
Best of luck,
fennix
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