I broke it! How can I fix it?

[Lonni J Friedman]

On 9/27/07, Rick Bowers <rwbowers at gmail.com> wrote:
> I just bought a new computer and have already broken it.
>
> The computer is an Acer Aspire and had Windows Vista installed.
> When it shipped, it had 3 partitions: a hidden system restore
> partition (sda1), C: (sda2) (1/2 the remaining space, with Windows
> Vista), D: (sda3)(1/2 the remaining space, USER).
>
> I booted a live linux disk and re-sized and re-partitioned the D:
> partition to two partitions; 64GB (D:) and 80GB (empty).
> At this point, the computer still functioned normally.
>
> Then I made the empty partition an extended partition (sda4) and
> created sda5 (76GB, "/") and sda6 (4GB, "swap")
>
> Next, I loaded an OpenSuSE CD and installed it to sda5.  When the
> install process asked me where to install the boot loader, I told it
> /dev/sda5.
> Why?? Because my choices were MBR, root disk , or boot disk (sda5). I
> did not want to put GRUB on the MBR because I wasn't sure what that
> entailed. I did not want to destroy the hidden recovery partition, so
> I chose my boot disk, sda5.
>
> Well, not the computer will not boot at all. A reboot simply displays
> "Verifying DMI Pool Data ..........." then hangs. Forever.
>
> I'm technical, but don't (obviously) understand the boot process. I
> can boot a live CD and, hopefully, recover. But I need help.
>
> Should I replace the MBR? Is it safe to put GRUB in the MBR? Will
> that still let me boot to the recovery partition?
> What are the steps to recover from my stupidity? I don't understand
> GRUB at all so will need somewhat detailed procedures.

I don't see how making partition changes would prevent the system from
posting properly.  If you remove all the disks, does it still hang in
the same fashion?  Can you boot off of a CD?

Have you tried resetting the CMOS (either by pulling the battery for
30 seconds, or some other mechanism)?

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
L. Friedman                                    netllama at gmail.com
LlamaLand                       https://netllama.linux-sxs.org