Thank you Eliyahu (and Steve, of course). I know the theory, and I even did it in the far past, but I forgot, and now things work different than should. 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).
2 more things about the system: 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. 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. 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? Thanks again! On Thu, Sep 12, 2013 at 11:01 PM, E.S. Rosenberg <esr+linux...@g.jct.ac.il>wrote: > If I understand you correctly you want to make the system bootable > again but you first want to do a dry run to make sure it works... > > So you take a modern livecd, a big external hdd and create a dd > imagefile of the current disk and now you can play all you want even > in a virtual environment without ever having to fear for your data. > > Alternatively you again take a second hard disk and install grub on it. > > The grub CLI may be a real PITA but it's also crazy powerful once you > get the hang of it.... > > BTW. for the past I don't know how many years now both IDE and SCSI > drives are handled by the kernel as sdX.... (same subsystem if I'm not > mistaken, but I may be very wrong don't know enough about the kernel > internals, am sure someone on the list does.) > > Regards, > Eliyahu - אליהו > > 2013/9/12 Eli Marmor <e...@netmask.it>: > > The simple answer is "because I'm afraid". > > And more detailed: > > I assume that anything that can be done through the MBR, can be done also > > manually through a live CD. > > So I want to see it booting, and then I'll set it permanently. > > I'm sure that it is possible, because it has been done for years by > another > > disk (the MBR of that disk booted the current disk). > > By the way: there is no SCSI, just IDE. > > > > Thank you! > > > > > > On Thu, Sep 12, 2013 at 7:34 PM, Steve Litt <sl...@troubleshooters.com> > > wrote: > >> > >> Why do you want to boot it just once? Perhaps if we knew what you were > >> trying to do, we could suggest other alternatives. For instance, if the > >> disk is small, you could ddrescue it off to an image, dd that image > >> onto a larger or same disk, and use that disk in another computer as > >> sda. > >> > >> Or you could copy the Mandrake partition to a partition made of unused > >> space on SDA, modify the /etc/fstab to either rename the devices, or > >> better mount by UUID, and then add that partition to your current grub. > >> > >> I've seen things like you mention, where the live CD can boot only sda. > >> And Grub really is a PITA. > >> > >> SteveT > >> > >> Steve Litt * http://www.troubleshooters.com/ > >> Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance > >> > >> > >> On Thu, 12 Sep 2013 13:56:05 +0300 > >> Eli Marmor <e...@netmask.it> wrote: > >> > >> > Thank you Shlomi. > >> > No success, so far. > >> > I'll give more details, so if anybody can help, I'll be grateful. > >> > I'm also willing to bring the system to anywhere and/or pay: > >> > > >> > I have a full Linux system (old Mandrake) on hdd4, > >> > including /boot/vmlinuz, /boot/initrd.img, etc. (all the system on > >> > one partition). It has been booted for years from another disk. > >> > The file system is correct (according to fsck), and mountable (when > >> > the computer is booted from a live-CD). > >> > All I want is to boot it once, manually, without writing any MBR, but > >> > from a live CD. > >> > Any live-CD and grub has its own limitations, for example some of them > >> > can't reach hd3,4 (although they can mount hdd4!). > >> > I believe that for some of you it's a matter of minutes. > >> > > >> > Anybody can help? > >> > > >> > Thanks a lot, > >> > Eli Marmor > >> > > >> > > >> > On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 8:38 PM, Shlomi Fish <shlo...@gmail.com> > >> > wrote: > >> > > >> > > Hi Eli, > >> > > > >> > > On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 7:37 PM, Eli Marmor <e...@netmask.it> wrote: > >> > > > >> > >> Hi, > >> > >> > >> > >> I have an old PC (with an old Mandrake), and its grub screwed up. > >> > >> I want to boot it WITHOUT re-installing the grub (I don't want to > >> > >> touch the HD till I see it works again, but boot it manually from a > >> > >> Live-CD/floppy). > >> > >> How can I do it from a Live-CD or floppy? (both work under this > >> > >> PC). What Live-CD/floppy is recommended for this purpose? > >> > >> Can I do it from the boot prompt? > >> > >> > >> > > > >> > > The GRUB command prompt allows you to enter any arbitrary GRUB > >> > > command and boot the machine however you like. So if the LiveCD > >> > > contains a working GRUB installation, you can use the GRUB command > >> > > prompt there to boot it like you would boot from the hard disk. > >> > > > >> > > Regards, > >> > > > >> > > -- Shlomi Fish > >> > > > >> > > > >> > >> > >> > >> Thanks, > >> > >> Eli Marmor > >> > >> > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> > >> Linux-il mailing list > >> > >> Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il > >> > >> http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > > > >> > > > >> > > -- > >> > > ------------------------------------------ > >> > > Shlomi Fish http://www.shlomifish.org/ > >> > > > >> > > Electrical Engineering studies. In the Technion. Been there. Done > >> > > that. Forgot a lot. Remember too much. > >> > > > >> > > Please reply to list if it's a mailing list post - > >> > > http://shlom.in/reply . > >> > > > >> > > _______________________________________________ > >> > > Linux-il mailing list > >> > > Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il > >> > > http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il > >> > > > >> > > > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> Linux-il mailing list > >> Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il > >> http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Linux-il mailing list > > Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il > > http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il > > >
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