[vox-tech] aborted XP install kills linux

[Peter Jay Salzman]

begin HARRISK@sbcglobal.net <HARRISK@sbcglobal.net> 
> I recently lent my computer to a friend while I was 
> out of town.  He decided that I really needed Windows 
> XP on one of my unused partitions.

holy cow!

> Thankfully, before 
> he finished installing, he also decided that he 
> probably shouldn't be installing something like XP on 
> my computer without telling me.From what I gather, 
> he got to the part where the installer asked him what 
> partition to install on before he stopped.  He 
> reformatted one of my partitions FAT16 before quitting.

> When I tried to boot, I got an error message that said 
> something like, "error loading operating system".  I 
> figured that XP had wiped out my bootloader, so I 
> booted up on a rescue cd and reinstalled grub.  Now, I 
> get to the grub menu and the kernel begins to boot 
> only to panic shortly thereafter.  Here is the output:
> 
> ...
> Net4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for Linux NET4.0
> ds: no socket drivers loaded
> attempt to access beyond end of device
> 03:04: rw=0, want=2, limit=1
> EXT3-fs: unable to read superblock
> attempt to access beyond end of device
> 03:04: rw=0, want=2, limit=1
> EXT2-fs: unable to read superblock
> attempt to access beyond end of device
> 03:04: rw=0, want=2, limit=1
> isofs_read_super: bread failed, dev=03:04, 
> iso_blknum=16, block=32
> Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:04
 
if i were in this position, i'd just use lilo.  it's not as featureful
as grub, but it's a heck of a lot easier.  and i know there's lots of
people on the list who'd be able to help me if i ever did have lilo
trouble.

> Also, my remaining linux partitions are being reported as ext2 and not
> ext3.  I know that they were ext3 before.

don't sweat it.  ext3 is backwards compatible.  although you must be
using an older rescue disk?  might want to get lnx-bbc.

> I'm not really sure what to do in order to be able to boot.  Any
> ideas?

first, brow beat your friend.  that was totally out of line.  i would
feel guilty about a dirty shutdown, let alone playing with partitions.
holy smokes.  that takes some really massive gargantuan cojones!

next, i would boot a rescue disk and see if you can mount the hard
drive's root partition.  this will tell you if grub is the problem or if
the partition somehow got hosed or not.  just see if it'll mount ok.
 

hopefully some grub people will respond.

pete

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