Bret Busby wrote: > In trying to use a standard Debian installer iso, and booting into > rescue mode, I got toa screen "select partition into which to install > the root system", or words to that effect.
Does it say "Rescue mode" in the corner? It should. Here is the official documentation for it: http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch08s07.html.en But that is fairly terse. Let me say that the rescue mode looks just like the install mode initially. It will ask you keyboard and locale questions and you might wonder if you are rescuing or installing! But it will have "Rescue" in the corners so that you can tell and be assured. Get the tool set up with keyboard, locale, timezone, and similar and eventually it will give you a menu with a list of actions. Advanced options... Rescue mode keyboard ...starts networking... hostname domainname ...apt update release files... ...loading additional components, Retrieving udebs... ...detecting disks... Then eventually it will get to a menu "Enter rescue mode" that will ask what device to use as a root file system. It will list the partitions that it has automatically detected. (If you have raid or lvm then it will list options for those. If not then just the simple disks.) Select the appropriate partition from the list. Then continue. At that point it presents a menu "Execute a shell in /dev/...". That is what you want. That should get you a shell on your system with everything needed mounted. > I have 13 partitions, and that screen does not provide any > information, such as labels or filesystem types, for the partitions, > so I have to figure out which is the appropriate partition to use as > the root system. It does not indicate anything like "A previous Debian > installation was found in partition <x>, so you might want to use this > partition." If you truly don't know then you will have to look at them individually and figure it out. > So, I have to remove the disk with that iso image, boot with a LiveCD > disk, and, examine the partitions. Of course using the livecd is fine too. But since you were right there ready to look already it is a shame to have to reboot and wait for the much longer boot time from the live cd. You can do it from rescue-mode right then, figure it out, then select that partition that you determined to be the right one. Simply select the option to execute a shell in the installer environment and then browse. By browsing I mean look at the partition type. The partition type will tell you which partitions are not swap. Start at the top and work down through the list. mount -o ro /dev/sda1 /mnt ls /mnt cat /mnt/etc/hostname cat /mnt/etc/debian_version umount /mnt mount -o ro /dev/sda2 /mnt ls /mnt cat /mnt/etc/hostname cat /mnt/etc/debian_version umount /mnt mount -o ro /dev/sda3 /mnt ls /mnt cat /mnt/etc/hostname cat /mnt/etc/debian_version umount /mnt Eventually you should be able to figure out which is the root partition. Using that information select it from the rescue menu. > The laptop computer, to which all of this appiles, whilst being (to > me) a fairly powerful computer, has an inferior optical disk drive, > that appears to be designed to be as diffiocult as possible, to > manually open, often taking uip to 20-30 minutes, to get it to open > manually, to remove or replace the removable optical disk. And that is exactly why I wouldn't do it. Sounds very painful. I, like some of other commenters, if needing to do this would probably resort to completely powering off the machine and ejecting the cdrom using a paperclip. > The Debian 7.8 installation iso image that I downloaded, both in the > rescue mode, and, in the main menu, does not include an option "Abort > installation", at any step that I encountered, wherein, an "Abort > installation" option, involves ejecting the removable media, and a > message "Remove the <removable media and press <ENTER> to reboot." I grabbed two screenshots from a VM test. I will put them here for at least a little while. I should do something more organized later and will probably move them after a while. http://www.proulx.com/~bob/debian/debian-installer-images/ The text of the menu will say: Device to use as root file system: /dev/sda1 Assemble RAID array Do not use a root file system <Go Back> Press TAB to highlight the Go Back option and then Enter to select it. That will go back to the main menu. The bottom of the main menu shows the options "Execute a shell" (very useful) and also has the menu option "Abort the installation". Scroll to the bottom and see that the last menu option is "Abort the installation". > Why does the Debian standard installation iso image, not include an > "Abort installation" option (at each screen, although, even, a single > instantiation, on the primary menu, would help, by rebooting the > system into that menu, to do it, if that is the only way to access > that option), that would enable ejection of the removable media with > the iso image, instead of making this so difficult, to extract the > removable media with the iso image? I am sorry you could not find it. Bob
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