Lost FC6 Partition (was Re: This is just amazing...not)

Tue Sep 7 17:17:42 UTC 2010

On 09/06/2010 10:45 PM, Karl Pearson wrote:
> On Mon, September 6, 2010 9:53 am, blann wrote:
>> Aloha Karl,
>>    Below some answers I may have failed to make in text ( and thanks for
>> your
>> input):
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Karl Pearson"<karlp at ourldsfamily.com>
>> To: "Getting started with Red Hat Linux"<redhat-install-list at redhat.com>
>> Sent: Saturday, September 04, 2010 11:00 AM
>> Subject: Re: This is just amazing...
>>
>>
>>> Please forgive my top-post, but also forgive my response:
>>>
>>> If you are going to "If I may change the subject" to us, please actually
>>> CHANGE THE SUBJECT (line above).
>>>
>>> This is called Hijacking A Thread, and isn't very good manners.
>>>
>>> Now to your email (see below):
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, September 3, 2010 2:58 pm, blann wrote:
>>>> If I may change the subject and, as usual ask for help (and thanks for
>>>> past
>>>> responses):
>>>>   Many moons back I must have damaged my MBR (winXP,FC6). A helpful
>>>> member
>>>> sent a cd with ubuntu , and now there is a boot choice(grub) between
>>>> that
>>>> OS
>>>> and  XP.
>>>
>>> fdisk /mbr will 'fix' a broken master boot record so you can boot into
>>> WinXP again, though why anyone would without being coerced to, I don't
>>> know.
>>>
>>>>
>>>> I am trying to see if I can restore the grub loader to get into my old
>>>> FC
>>>> installation which is likely
>>>> still on my HD. I have tried my disk1 from  FC6 to do a reinstall, it
>>>> seems to go thru motions,
>>>> but a revised grub loader does not come up- even tho I get a message
>>>> during
>>>> install
>>>> that boot loader is being installed- and an installation complete msg.
>>>
>>> When you installed Ubuntu (Linux Mint is much better IMHO), do you
>>> remember being asked if you wanted to put it side-by-side with BOTH
>>> WinXP
>>> and FC?
>> I DO NOT RECALL_ MY OLD MEMORY IS BAD<  BUT AT STARTUP A GRUB
>> LOADER APPEARS<  IT CONTAINS UBUNTU,WINXP, UBUNTU RESCUE, AND
>> A COUPLE OF MEMORY CHECK OPTIONS. SO THE 'LIVE UBUNTU' SEEMS MOUNTED
>> WITH WINXP OPTION. The HD organization coming up shows a /dev/hdb with
>> hdb1
>> ext3(102mb),
>> and hdb2 LVM PV (117138 mb)- and /dev/sda with sda1-3 and 5-7
>> partitions,ntfs,ext3,extended,ntfs,
>> ext3,swap partitions. I need now after some years to go back and review my
>> partitions to ID.
>
> If you are seeing Grub, then you aren't booting from a Live CD, which you
> would have to do to use the disk tools necessary to see what partitions
> can be found.
>
> I suspect, sadly, that your FC6 partition was over-written by the Ubuntu
> install.
>
>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Is there a way to repair or replace what I am assuming is a damaged
>>>> mbr/grub
>>>> loader due to having
>>>> turned off a hung up XP with AC button?
>>>
>>> as I wrote above: fdisk /mbr
>> FDISK sounds like what I may have used years ago to repartition; is it on
>> disk 1 of my FC6
>> install?
>
> I doubt it. FC6 wasn't a live CD. You can use fdisk from any version of
> Linux to see the partition table, however, and that may be what you need
> to do.
>
> Just run Ubuntu and run fdisk as root (sudo fdisk should work). If you
> have more than one hard disk in the PC, you will want to run it against
> each disk to see what partitions.
>
> FC6 defaulted to ext3, I believe (that may have been FC8???). Rick will
> know for sure, as well as a few others on this list. It's been a while
> since I happened on an FC6 install to check.
>
> In any case, I would recommend that if you are going to use a multiple-OS
> PC, that you get a new hard disk for each OS, unless you know you'll be
> using one very sparingly. If that's the case, just run that OS in
> VirtualBox and be done with it. That's how I run XP at work and home. I
> think I boot them up about once a week, or less.
>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> I have, via generosity of an active member of the group, an FC12 set of
>>>> install disks; have hesitated
>>>> running this for fear I would overwrite /home directory, whereas the FC
>>>> Bible advises that simple
>>>> re-install of FC6 should not do this.
>>>>    Any comments greatly appreciated! Thanks- Marshall
>
> You can always download new ISOs from any distributions downloads page,
> and burn them to DVDs or CDs and take them for a test drive. I use CentOS
> and FC9 on my servers, and Linux Mint (a derivative of Ubuntu, without all
> the restrictions) for my desktops and laptop.
>
> Karl
>
>>>
>>> Any install of FC will overwrite the home directory, unless specifically
>>> told not to. What I do in these cases is boot to a "live CD" such as
>>> Mint
>>> or another Knoppix-like release, then mount the Linux partition, and
>>> copy
>>> /home/ME to a USB-attached external device, such as a disk or flash
>>> drive
>>> that's big enough to hold the data. With some distributions, you could
>>> even burn your home directory to a DVD. I also recommend not worrying
>>> about copying anything other than Documents, etc. Settings are pretty
>>> easy
>>> to recreate, actually, and you get to use the functionality of the new
>>> OS
>>> better that way, too.
>>> BETWEEN COMPUTER IN SD AND SOME USB"S I LIKELY HAVE HOME
>> DIRECTORY BACKED UP- SO MAYBE I'LL GAMBLE.
>>
>> Thanks again for your help on this- best wishes,Marshall

It was I who sent a bunch of CDs to you, Blann.  And you sent me return
postage.  Not at all necessary, but kudos to you!

Anyway, FC6 defaults to ext2 filesystems and, if you used logical 
volumes, LVM1.  A live CD of a more current system may not see your
items because of that (FC8 and later went to ext3 and LVM2).

If you have a CD of FC6, try booting that in rescue mode and see if it
spots your FC6 installation.  If it does, let it mount it (it'll be
mounted at /mnt/sysimage).  You can then "chroot /mnt/sysimage" and
try to reinstall grub to your MBR at that point.  Note that this will
screw up your existing MBR, so back that up before doing this.  To
back up the MBR, put some removable, writable media in your machine
somewhere and copy the first block of your boot drive to it using dd:

	dd if=/dev/sda of=/path/to/removable/media/mbr.bak bs=512 count=1

If you can't find appropriate bootable FC6 media, (rummaging through my
stock of CDs and HD archives of ISO images), I have copies of every
Fedora release.  To be honest, several I only have DVD images of some
of them, but I can make copies and shoot them to you as I did before.

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