Re: upgrade->dead system, help.

kmark+debian_at_pipeline.com
Date: 11/01/03

  • Next message: Christian Schnobrich: "dpkg --get-selections" 
    Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 06:36:59 -0500 (EST)
To: wil <wsa3@xs4all.nl>

    On Sat, 1 Nov 2003, wil wrote:

    > Hi,
    >
    > Sorry I have very little info on this...no logs or anything:(
    >
    > Running SID, with a custom 2.4.22 kernel, ext3 file system.
    > HD was checked with the diagnostic utility from IBM, including
    > surface (advanced) check and was fine.
    >
    > Did an update via dselect yesterday and after that the whole
    > system has died. When i boot the process stops at
    > INIT: version 2.85 booting
    > followed by a blinking cursor.
    >
    > When i ran the upgrade the thing striking me as very odd was
    > under "new packages to install" 'kernel-headers 2.5.x.x.' were
    > mentioned.
    > Not sure of the exact version anymore but it was 2.5 for sure.
    > I think it was 2.5.99.
    > I was kinda flabbergasted by that and saw no reason why those
    > kernel headers should be installed...since i'm on 2.4.
    > So i went back into the dselect selection 'mode' and set that
    > kernel package to 'purge' so it wouldn't install.
    > This gave me a load of 'xxxx depends on kernel-headers 2.5.x.x. ' like
    > from gcc and so on.
    > Struck me as utterly weird aswell cause my system never had anything
    > 2.5.xxx kerlnel related stuff on it...anyways...thinking 'dpkg knows best'
    > i let
    > it have it's way and the package in question was installed.
    > After getting the packages during install/configure something went wrong
    > aswell but silly me didn't pay too much attention since this happens
    > quite a lot with unstable and always gets resolved quickly...and
    > never ended in something like i'm having now.
    > Can't imagine the cause to be those kernel headers even if it's weird
    > they were installed, but one of the 20 orso packages which got
    > updated.
    >
    > An older 2.4.18 kernel does go thru the entire boot process but
    > with may many errors mostly in the line of 'can't find /var/xxxxxxxxxx'
    >
    > After that i tried toms floppy linux to boot the system.
    > mount /dev/hda9 results in just getting the'special device
    > not found message'.
    > And hda9 happens to be /var. fdisk shows hda9 as there and
    > as ext3 but i think the complete filesystem went out da door on
    > that partition.
    > e2fsck gives me a 'the superbloack could not be read or does not....'
    > etc..etc..etc.
    >
    > Any ideas on how to get out of this one?...and why this happened?
    >
    > Cheers
    Hi,
    get a knoppix cdrom.
    boot from it.
    chroot to your hd partition and see if you can then download a good
    kernel and reinstall it.
    -Kev 

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