Subject: [tlug] [Newbie] Boot Loader Problem

[Kenneth Burling <meyaden_emrys@example.com>]

On Thu, 3 Jan 2008 11:48:26 +0900,
CL <az.4tlug@example.com> wrote,
in Message d23335fa0801021848s1fa7833atcac2fe3a7d4d4279@example.com

 

>
> Left alone with Linux over the holiday and he breaks everything ...
>
> RESULTS:
<snip grub died>
 
>From my experience, when Grub just dies like you described, the
issue is usually hardware related.  Someone else suggested fsdsk
or similar...  That is a must.  Check that drive for problems, of the
physical sort.
 
It is possible it was just a one time glitch, but make sure.
 
Thing is, that lilo and grub both store conf files on the hard
drive somewhere, either in /etc, or /boot.  The difference is
how they use them.  Lilo accesses the file when you manually
tell it to update the boot loader settings.
 
Grub accesses it every time you load.  The end result is that
grub is about a thousand times easer to tinker with on the fly,
but if you come up with bad sectors on the disk it is looking at
for it's conf files, then your hosed.  Overall, I still preffer grub.
 
The first time I went through this myself (correction, the only time),
It gave me enough warning to backup all my important files before
the drive up and died on me.  If I had still been using lilo (used to
be a die hard lilo advocate), then I would not have known till the
problems got much more noticable.  By that point I could have lost
a lot of data.
 
Back up your important files, give the disk a once over with
your favorite diagnostic tools, and be prepared if need be to
buy a new one.  At the very least, if you don't get a new disk soon,
don't rely on that disk for anything valuable.
 
--
Ken