Desperate situation

[Mike McCarty]

Anne Wilson wrote:
> On Thursday 09 February 2006 21:58, Mike McCarty wrote:
> 
> 
>>Congratulations! I'm so happy for you. Of course, step 2 is to change
>>your backup strategy to include what was omitted.
>>
> 
> It's somewhat ironic that all my thoughts have been on what's necessary for my 
> file/print/mail server, partly because my backup strategy has been patchy, to 
> say the least, since I started using linux.  The fact that it's so reliable 
> has made me more careless than I ever was before.  However, ad hoc backups 
> will have to suffice for the next week or so, until I get things settled on 
> the new installations, after which a much more robust backup strategy should 
> be in place.

<chuckle> Ironic, indeed :-)

>>I love Knoppix and Kanotix. IIRC, Knoppix has a copy of K3b on it. That
>>is a very nice tool for burning CDs.
>>
> 
> I had taken out the second CD/DVD drive, and I rather assumed that knoppix 
> would need access to the disk from time to time, so the drive would not be 
> available for burning.  Am I wrong on that?  Still, pen-drives saved the day, 
> and I can use this box for the burning.

You are correct. If you have only one CDROM drive, then you cannot use
Knoppix for burning CDs. In fact, it won't let you eject the CDROM.

[snip]

>>years since I used LiLo. You might try the systemrescuecd
>>http://www.sysresccd.org/ for rewriting LiLo to the MBR.
>>
> 
> Since the data appears to be fine, with only the MBR affected, I'm going to 
> put in a large new disk tonight, and copy everything across from the old 
> drive.  After that, it would be useful to know if there is a good tool for 
> aggressively scanning the drive to see what damage exists.  Any advice on 
> that?  It will probably have to be ditched, but I'd like to test it first.

Sorry, I'm not familiar enough with "Linux tools" on that score.
But I'd check the Knoppix disc for something. What makes you think
there is a problem with the disc itself? The entire MBR fits into
one sector, and that includes the partition table, which you can
read or you couldn't mount. So... I guess sth overwrote the
boot code.

Tell you what, if you decide to toss the disc, how about mailing
it to me instead? I'll pay postage and throw in a few $$$ for
your time. :-)

Mike
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