I broke it! How can I fix it?

[Stuart Biggerstaff]

The wild card is of course Acer's recovery.  My impression from having
used it on a recent (but not current) AcerPower system, is that what's
on the recovery partition gets called up by booting the recovery CDs or
DVD.  It isn't ever booted directly.

And unless it has changed since the last version I tried, it also
depends on the second Windows partition being FAT32.  Because of that,
if you have access to some way of imaging the new system, either before
use or after getting Windows the way you like it, that would be more
flexible than Acer's system.  If you do that (or don't care about being
able to go back), I believe you can even get rid of the recovery
partition completely, and Windows will still work--if you edit boot.ini
to refer to the first partition on the disk instead of the second.

Whatever, installing GRUB to the MBR shouldn't to anything but make it
work.



Stuart Biggerstaff
Systems Technician
Linda Hall Library of Science Engineering & Technology
5109 Cherry St.
Kansas City, Missouri 64110-2498

Phone:	(816) 926-8748
	(800) 662-1545 x748
FAX:	(816) 926-8790
URL:	www.lindahall.org 
-----Original Message-----
From: linux-users-bounces at linux-sxs.org
[mailto:linux-users-bounces at linux-sxs.org] On Behalf Of Rick Bowers
Sent: Friday, September 28, 2007 11:32 AM
To: Linux tips and tricks
Subject: Re: I broke it! How can I fix it?

At Friday 9/28/2007 10:26 AM, you wrote:
>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)?

Well, apparently I'm pretty brain-dead. I can boot from CD, so I loaded
a recovery disk and looked at the partition table. During the GRUB setup
dialog, in addition to asking where I wanted GRUB installed, it asked if
I wanted to set the boot partition (flag). So I set it to sda4. I've set
it back to sda2 and can now boot properly to Windows Vista. Now I need
to figure out how to properly install GRUB so I can multi-boot.

So...

Where should I install GRUB? MBR? Will that affect my sda1 partition 
where the recovery stuff is that Acer put there?
I've setup linux before, but never as a multi-boot setup.

Thanks,

~Rick

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