<div dir="ltr"><div><div><div><div><div><div><div>Thank you Eliyahu (and Steve, of course).<br><br></div>I know the theory, and I even did it in the far past, but I forgot, and now things work different than should.<br></div>
I'll try anything you suggest (and most of them I already planned to try), but so far I'm still stacked (I used live CDs of supergrubdisk and Ubuntu, each of them failed for other things).<br></div><br>2 more things about the system:<br>
</div><br>a. In the past I had it under another computer, separated to different partitions (for boot, var, etc.). After a crash, I restored them from the backup, put them in one partition (hdd), and booted it from a floppy. I was too lazy to MBR it in the disk, till it made an ex-employee of me crazy of that, so he did it, but I don't know exactly what he did, and it worked great for years.<br>
<br></div>b. I've planned for a long time to move the jobs of this system to other machines (and drop it), but it will take at least 2-3 weeks. So maybe I will not need more than 1 manual boot, and then when the system serves what it has to serve and in its original environment (it's connected directly to a leased line), I'll transfer its duties to other computers in my spare time.<br>
<br></div>Assuming that I miss one small and idiotic thing, the best for me is to bring it to anybody who may help, and I believe it will not take more than several minutes. And I don't want to get this service for free. Can anybody help?<br>
<br></div>Thanks again!<br><div><div><div><br></div></div></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Sep 12, 2013 at 11:01 PM, E.S. Rosenberg <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:esr+linux-il@g.jct.ac.il" target="_blank">esr+linux-il@g.jct.ac.il</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">If I understand you correctly you want to make the system bootable<br>
again but you first want to do a dry run to make sure it works...<br>
<br>
So you take a modern livecd, a big external hdd and create a dd<br>
imagefile of the current disk and now you can play all you want even<br>
in a virtual environment without ever having to fear for your data.<br>
<br>
Alternatively you again take a second hard disk and install grub on it.<br>
<br>
The grub CLI may be a real PITA but it's also crazy powerful once you<br>
get the hang of it....<br>
<br>
BTW. for the past I don't know how many years now both IDE and SCSI<br>
drives are handled by the kernel as sdX.... (same subsystem if I'm not<br>
mistaken, but I may be very wrong don't know enough about the kernel<br>
internals, am sure someone on the list does.)<br>
<br>
Regards,<br>
Eliyahu - אליהו<br>
<br>
2013/9/12 Eli Marmor <<a href="mailto:eli@netmask.it">eli@netmask.it</a>>:<br>
<div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5">> The simple answer is "because I'm afraid".<br>
> And more detailed:<br>
> I assume that anything that can be done through the MBR, can be done also<br>
> manually through a live CD.<br>
> So I want to see it booting, and then I'll set it permanently.<br>
> I'm sure that it is possible, because it has been done for years by another<br>
> disk (the MBR of that disk booted the current disk).<br>
> By the way: there is no SCSI, just IDE.<br>
><br>
> Thank you!<br>
><br>
><br>
> On Thu, Sep 12, 2013 at 7:34 PM, Steve Litt <<a href="mailto:slitt@troubleshooters.com">slitt@troubleshooters.com</a>><br>
> wrote:<br>
>><br>
>> Why do you want to boot it just once? Perhaps if we knew what you were<br>
>> trying to do, we could suggest other alternatives. For instance, if the<br>
>> disk is small, you could ddrescue it off to an image, dd that image<br>
>> onto a larger or same disk, and use that disk in another computer as<br>
>> sda.<br>
>><br>
>> Or you could copy the Mandrake partition to a partition made of unused<br>
>> space on SDA, modify the /etc/fstab to either rename the devices, or<br>
>> better mount by UUID, and then add that partition to your current grub.<br>
>><br>
>> I've seen things like you mention, where the live CD can boot only sda.<br>
>> And Grub really is a PITA.<br>
>><br>
>> SteveT<br>
>><br>
>> Steve Litt * <a href="http://www.troubleshooters.com/" target="_blank">http://www.troubleshooters.com/</a><br>
>> Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance<br>
>><br>
>><br>
>> On Thu, 12 Sep 2013 13:56:05 +0300<br>
>> Eli Marmor <<a href="mailto:eli@netmask.it">eli@netmask.it</a>> wrote:<br>
>><br>
>> > Thank you Shlomi.<br>
>> > No success, so far.<br>
>> > I'll give more details, so if anybody can help, I'll be grateful.<br>
>> > I'm also willing to bring the system to anywhere and/or pay:<br>
>> ><br>
>> > I have a full Linux system (old Mandrake) on hdd4,<br>
>> > including /boot/vmlinuz, /boot/initrd.img, etc. (all the system on<br>
>> > one partition). It has been booted for years from another disk.<br>
>> > The file system is correct (according to fsck), and mountable (when<br>
>> > the computer is booted from a live-CD).<br>
>> > All I want is to boot it once, manually, without writing any MBR, but<br>
>> > from a live CD.<br>
>> > Any live-CD and grub has its own limitations, for example some of them<br>
>> > can't reach hd3,4 (although they can mount hdd4!).<br>
>> > I believe that for some of you it's a matter of minutes.<br>
>> ><br>
>> > Anybody can help?<br>
>> ><br>
>> > Thanks a lot,<br>
>> > Eli Marmor<br>
>> ><br>
>> ><br>
>> > On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 8:38 PM, Shlomi Fish <<a href="mailto:shlomif@gmail.com">shlomif@gmail.com</a>><br>
>> > wrote:<br>
>> ><br>
>> > > Hi Eli,<br>
>> > ><br>
>> > > On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 7:37 PM, Eli Marmor <<a href="mailto:eli@netmask.it">eli@netmask.it</a>> wrote:<br>
>> > ><br>
>> > >> Hi,<br>
>> > >><br>
>> > >> I have an old PC (with an old Mandrake), and its grub screwed up.<br>
>> > >> I want to boot it WITHOUT re-installing the grub (I don't want to<br>
>> > >> touch the HD till I see it works again, but boot it manually from a<br>
>> > >> Live-CD/floppy).<br>
>> > >> How can I do it from a Live-CD or floppy? (both work under this<br>
>> > >> PC). What Live-CD/floppy is recommended for this purpose?<br>
>> > >> Can I do it from the boot prompt?<br>
>> > >><br>
>> > ><br>
>> > > The GRUB command prompt allows you to enter any arbitrary GRUB<br>
>> > > command and boot the machine however you like. So if the LiveCD<br>
>> > > contains a working GRUB installation, you can use the GRUB command<br>
>> > > prompt there to boot it like you would boot from the hard disk.<br>
>> > ><br>
>> > > Regards,<br>
>> > ><br>
>> > > -- Shlomi Fish<br>
>> > ><br>
>> > ><br>
>> > >><br>
>> > >> Thanks,<br>
>> > >> Eli Marmor<br>
>> > >><br>
>> > >> _______________________________________________<br>
>> > >> Linux-il mailing list<br>
>> > >> <a href="mailto:Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il">Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il</a><br>
>> > >> <a href="http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il" target="_blank">http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il</a><br>
>> > >><br>
>> > >><br>
>> > ><br>
>> > ><br>
>> > > --<br>
>> > > ------------------------------------------<br>
>> > > Shlomi Fish <a href="http://www.shlomifish.org/" target="_blank">http://www.shlomifish.org/</a><br>
>> > ><br>
>> > > Electrical Engineering studies. In the Technion. Been there. Done<br>
>> > > that. Forgot a lot. Remember too much.<br>
>> > ><br>
>> > > Please reply to list if it's a mailing list post -<br>
>> > > <a href="http://shlom.in/reply" target="_blank">http://shlom.in/reply</a> .<br>
>> > ><br>
>> > > _______________________________________________<br>
>> > > Linux-il mailing list<br>
>> > > <a href="mailto:Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il">Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il</a><br>
>> > > <a href="http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il" target="_blank">http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il</a><br>
>> > ><br>
>> > ><br>
>><br>
>> _______________________________________________<br>
>> Linux-il mailing list<br>
>> <a href="mailto:Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il">Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il</a><br>
>> <a href="http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il" target="_blank">http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il</a><br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
> _______________________________________________<br>
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> <a href="mailto:Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il">Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il</a><br>
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><br>
</div></div></blockquote></div><br></div>