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I was at the end of the process of installing gentoo on the second
hard drive on my computer (the first has Win200). I had partitioned
hdc, and installed Gentoo. However, at the very last step, copying
Lilo onto a floppy, I messed up a command and turned the screen into
gobbledygook. I cannot boot Gentoo without this floppy, since the
computer does not boot from the second drive (hdc), and, if I removed
the other drive, this Lilo would not work because the second drive
would become the first hard drive.

I can reboot from the Gentoo CD, and I see the cdimage prompt, but it
took me two days to download and install everything, since the CD
version is incorrect for my computer. Is there a series of commands
that I can issue that will get me back into the installed version of
Gentoo so I can generate a boot floppy?

Thank you,

Jan

In article <cd6e33e.0308281438.61f3f0e4@posting.google.com> , Jan wrote:
> I was at the end of the process of installing gentoo on the second
> hard drive on my computer (the first has Win200). I had partitioned
> hdc, and installed Gentoo. However, at the very last step, copying
> Lilo onto a floppy, I messed up a command and turned the screen into
> gobbledygook. I cannot boot Gentoo without this floppy, since the
> computer does not boot from the second drive (hdc), and, if I removed
> the other drive, this Lilo would not work because the second drive
> would become the first hard drive.
>
> I can reboot from the Gentoo CD, and I see the cdimage prompt, but it
> took me two days to download and install everything, since the CD
> version is incorrect for my computer. Is there a series of commands
> that I can issue that will get me back into the installed version of
> Gentoo so I can generate a boot floppy?
>
> Thank you,
>
> Jan

You should be able to just mount the relevant partition and chroot, like
you did in the initial steps of the install guide after creating a
filesystem.

--
Jon Portnoy
avenj/irc.freenode.net #gentoo, irc.oftc.net #cola
Opinions expressed are my own, not those of Gentoo Linux or any
other entity I am associated with unless stated otherwise.

ditzian@alltel.net (Jan) wrote in message news:<cd6e33e.0308281438.61f3f0e4@posting.google.c om>...
> I was at the end of the process of installing gentoo on the second
> hard drive on my computer (the first has Win200). I had partitioned
> hdc, and installed Gentoo. However, at the very last step, copying
> Lilo onto a floppy, I messed up a command and turned the screen into
> gobbledygook. I cannot boot Gentoo without this floppy, since the
> computer does not boot from the second drive (hdc), and, if I removed
> the other drive, this Lilo would not work because the second drive
> would become the first hard drive.
>
> I can reboot from the Gentoo CD, and I see the cdimage prompt, but it
> took me two days to download and install everything, since the CD
> version is incorrect for my computer. Is there a series of commands
> that I can issue that will get me back into the installed version of
> Gentoo so I can generate a boot floppy?
>
> Thank you,
>
> Jan

>
> You should be able to just mount the relevant partition and chroot, like
> you did in the initial steps of the install guide after creating a
> filesystem.
>

Jon,

Thank you for the approach you suggested.

I tried typing the following:
mount -t proc proc /mnt/gentoo/proc
and received this response:
mount: mount point /mnt/gentoo/proc does not exist.
I then typed:
cd /mnt
ls
and got back:
cdrom cloop

It seems to me that I have to tell the loader Linux that was installed
by the CD that I have an hdc with another Linux on it, and I want to
run that other Linux. The root partition is hdc3. I was not able to
communicate this to the loader when I had to reboot, and that was when
I posted the request. Whenever I talk about /dev/hdc3 to the loader,
it does not admit to hdc being there, although when I did an ls of
/dev, hdc was listed, I think. I do not know the command to issue, but
I suspect that it will have the term hdc in it.

Jan

In article <cd6e33e.0308281952.3d92bd57@posting.google.com> , Jan wrote:
> ditzian@alltel.net (Jan) wrote in message news:<cd6e33e.0308281438.61f3f0e4@posting.google.c om>...
>> I was at the end of the process of installing gentoo on the second
>> hard drive on my computer (the first has Win200). I had partitioned
>> hdc, and installed Gentoo. However, at the very last step, copying
>> Lilo onto a floppy, I messed up a command and turned the screen into
>> gobbledygook. I cannot boot Gentoo without this floppy, since the
>> computer does not boot from the second drive (hdc), and, if I removed
>> the other drive, this Lilo would not work because the second drive
>> would become the first hard drive.
>>
>> I can reboot from the Gentoo CD, and I see the cdimage prompt, but it
>> took me two days to download and install everything, since the CD
>> version is incorrect for my computer. Is there a series of commands
>> that I can issue that will get me back into the installed version of
>> Gentoo so I can generate a boot floppy?
>>
>> Thank you,
>>
>> Jan
>
>>
>> You should be able to just mount the relevant partition and chroot, like
>> you did in the initial steps of the install guide after creating a
>> filesystem.
>>
>
> Jon,
>
> Thank you for the approach you suggested.
>
> I tried typing the following:
> mount -t proc proc /mnt/gentoo/proc
> and received this response:
> mount: mount point /mnt/gentoo/proc does not exist.
> I then typed:
> cd /mnt
> ls
> and got back:
> cdrom cloop
>
> It seems to me that I have to tell the loader Linux that was installed
> by the CD that I have an hdc with another Linux on it, and I want to
> run that other Linux. The root partition is hdc3. I was not able to
> communicate this to the loader when I had to reboot, and that was when
> I posted the request. Whenever I talk about /dev/hdc3 to the loader,
> it does not admit to hdc being there, although when I did an ls of
> /dev, hdc was listed, I think. I do not know the command to issue, but
> I suspect that it will have the term hdc in it.
>
> Jan

mkdir /mnt/gentoo
mount /dev/hdc3 /mnt/gentoo
(if you have a separate /boot, you may want to mount it to
/mnt/gentoo/boot at this point)
mount -t proc proc /mnt/gentoo/proc
chroot /mnt/gentoo

And you should be okay.

--
Jon Portnoy
avenj/irc.freenode.net #gentoo, irc.oftc.net #cola
Opinions expressed are my own, not those of Gentoo Linux or any
other entity I am associated with unless stated otherwise.

ditzian@alltel.net (Jan) writes:


> > You should be able to just mount the relevant partition and chroot, like
> > you did in the initial steps of the install guide after creating a
> > filesystem.
> >
>
> Jon,
>
> Thank you for the approach you suggested.
>
> I tried typing the following:
> mount -t proc proc /mnt/gentoo/proc
> and received this response:
> mount: mount point /mnt/gentoo/proc does not exist.
> I then typed:
> cd /mnt
> ls
> and got back:
> cdrom cloop
>
> It seems to me that I have to tell the loader Linux that was installed
> by the CD that I have an hdc with another Linux on it, and I want to
> run that other Linux. The root partition is hdc3. I was not able to
> communicate this to the loader when I had to reboot, and that was when
> I posted the request. Whenever I talk about /dev/hdc3 to the loader,
> it does not admit to hdc being there, although when I did an ls of
> /dev, hdc was listed, I think. I do not know the command to issue, but
> I suspect that it will have the term hdc in it.

Could you show us the output of "dmesg|grep hd" and "fdisk /dev/hdc".

It might make your problem clearer to us.

In article <cd6e33e.0308281438.61f3f0e4@posting.google.com> , Jan wrote:
> I was at the end of the process of installing gentoo on the second
> hard drive on my computer (the first has Win200). I had partitioned
> hdc, and installed Gentoo. However, at the very last step, copying
> Lilo onto a floppy, I messed up a command and turned the screen into
> gobbledygook. I cannot boot Gentoo without this floppy, since the
> computer does not boot from the second drive (hdc), and, if I removed
> the other drive, this Lilo would not work because the second drive
> would become the first hard drive.
>
> I can reboot from the Gentoo CD, and I see the cdimage prompt, but it
> took me two days to download and install everything, since the CD
> version is incorrect for my computer. Is there a series of commands
> that I can issue that will get me back into the installed version of
> Gentoo so I can generate a boot floppy?
>
> Thank you,
>
> Jan

How about booting with
lilo> linux-2.4.20 root=/dev/hdc
with any boot floppy or cdrom.
Boots with the kernel on the boot device, but the root filesystem will
become hdc.
It should work with your gentoo CD.

--Håkon

Whyld-Chyld <test@example.com> wrote in message news:<JLJ3b.21718$Ad4.9032437@news3.news.adelphia. net>...
> Jan wrote:
>
> > I was at the end of the process of installing gentoo on the second
> > hard drive on my computer (the first has Win200). I had partitioned
> > hdc, and installed Gentoo. However, at the very last step, copying
> > Lilo onto a floppy, I messed up a command and turned the screen into
> > gobbledygook. I cannot boot Gentoo without this floppy, since the
> > computer does not boot from the second drive (hdc), and, if I removed
> > the other drive, this Lilo would not work because the second drive
> > would become the first hard drive.
> >
> > I can reboot from the Gentoo CD, and I see the cdimage prompt, but it
> > took me two days to download and install everything, since the CD
> > version is incorrect for my computer. Is there a series of commands
> > that I can issue that will get me back into the installed version of
> > Gentoo so I can generate a boot floppy?
> >
> > Thank you,
> >
> > Jan
> Fairly easy to do. Just redo the making boot floppy steps in the manual from
> the chroot. Problem is solved without having to reinstall everything

I want to thank all the people who posted solutions to this problem. I
followed up on Jon's solution and typed:

mkdir /mnt/gentoo
mount /dev/hdc3 /mnt/gentoo
mount -t proc proc /mnt/gentoo/proc
chroot /mnt/gentoo

This succeeded in getting me into the disk, where I saw lilo.conf. I
went further but I received the message that it could not find the
kernel. I probably did not need to do the next step, but I repeated
genkernel. I am now waiting for the forty days and forty nights that
it will take to finish this task. I probably did not name the kernel
correctly, and this time I will try to find it first, before I name it
in the Lilo.

I am very new to Linux. However, I am intrigued by the approaches
suggested by others, and I will probably try them after I have
succeeded in getting some form of Linux running so Lilo surely has
something to point to and start.

I have been getting a message at some point about not finding a video
driver, but I am going to press forward, hoping for a default.

I thank those who took the time to figure out my problem and offer
their solutions. This is not the last you will see me in this group.
My Linux guru, the person who got me interested, just went off to
college, so I will turn to this group for guidance.

Jan

ditzian@alltel.net (Jan) wrote in message news:<cd6e33e.0308291504.1382d69f@posting.google.c om>...
> Whyld-Chyld <test@example.com> wrote in message news:<JLJ3b.21718$Ad4.9032437@news3.news.adelphia. net>...
> > Jan wrote:
> >
> > > I was at the end of the process of installing gentoo on the second
> > > hard drive on my computer (the first has Win200). I had partitioned
> > > hdc, and installed Gentoo. However, at the very last step, copying
> > > Lilo onto a floppy, I messed up a command and turned the screen into
> > > gobbledygook. I cannot boot Gentoo without this floppy, since the
> > > computer does not boot from the second drive (hdc), and, if I removed
> > > the other drive, this Lilo would not work because the second drive
> > > would become the first hard drive.
> > >
> > > I can reboot from the Gentoo CD, and I see the cdimage prompt, but it
> > > took me two days to download and install everything, since the CD
> > > version is incorrect for my computer. Is there a series of commands
> > > that I can issue that will get me back into the installed version of
> > > Gentoo so I can generate a boot floppy?
> > >
> > > Thank you,
> > >
> > > Jan
> > Fairly easy to do. Just redo the making boot floppy steps in the manual from
> > the chroot. Problem is solved without having to reinstall everything
>
> I want to thank all the people who posted solutions to this problem. I
> followed up on Jon's solution and typed:
>
> mkdir /mnt/gentoo
> mount /dev/hdc3 /mnt/gentoo
> mount -t proc proc /mnt/gentoo/proc
> chroot /mnt/gentoo
>
> This succeeded in getting me into the disk, where I saw lilo.conf. I
> went further but I received the message that it could not find the
> kernel. I probably did not need to do the next step, but I repeated
> genkernel. I am now waiting for the forty days and forty nights that
> it will take to finish this task. I probably did not name the kernel
> correctly, and this time I will try to find it first, before I name it
> in the Lilo.
>
> I am very new to Linux. However, I am intrigued by the approaches
> suggested by others, and I will probably try them after I have
> succeeded in getting some form of Linux running so Lilo surely has
> something to point to and start.
>
> I have been getting a message at some point about not finding a video
> driver, but I am going to press forward, hoping for a default.
>
> I thank those who took the time to figure out my problem and offer
> their solutions. This is not the last you will see me in this group.
> My Linux guru, the person who got me interested, just went off to
> college, so I will turn to this group for guidance.
>
> Jan


If this reply is a dupe, please excuse me. I am having problems both
with Gentoo and with my newsposting.

I followed the directions to get back to hdc, and, after rerunning
genkernel and make dep operations, which took over eight hours, things
appeared to be OK. I
generated one bad boot floppy disk, so I generated another that had no
error message. Then I closed down Gentoo and restarted with the boot
floppy in the drive, and got a CRC error. I got back to Gentoo with
the
same procedure, but I cannot find the kernel. If I complete the chroot
command and try to do the dd command, it says that I do not have the
kernel. If I do a ls in /boot, it returns nothing.

Do I have to repeat the eight-hour build each time I try to generate a
Lilo disk?

Jan

In article <cd6e33e.0309010312.78b17192@posting.google.com> , Jan wrote:
> ditzian@alltel.net (Jan) wrote in message news:<cd6e33e.0308291504.1382d69f@posting.google.c om>...
>> Whyld-Chyld <test@example.com> wrote in message news:<JLJ3b.21718$Ad4.9032437@news3.news.adelphia. net>...
>> > Jan wrote:
[snip]
>
> If this reply is a dupe, please excuse me. I am having problems both
> with Gentoo and with my newsposting.
>
> I followed the directions to get back to hdc, and, after rerunning
> genkernel and make dep operations, which took over eight hours, things
> appeared to be OK. I
> generated one bad boot floppy disk, so I generated another that had no
> error message. Then I closed down Gentoo and restarted with the boot
> floppy in the drive, and got a CRC error. I got back to Gentoo with
> the
> same procedure, but I cannot find the kernel. If I complete the chroot
> command and try to do the dd command, it says that I do not have the
> kernel. If I do a ls in /boot, it returns nothing.
>
> Do I have to repeat the eight-hour build each time I try to generate a
> Lilo disk?
>
> Jan

Of course not.

Actually, your /boot just isn't mounted.

If fstab is set up properly, you can just do: mount /boot
Otherwise, you'll need to specify the partition in the mount command.

(Eight hours? Ouch. Slow box... :/)

--
Jon Portnoy
avenj/irc.freenode.net #gentoo, irc.oftc.net #cola
Opinions expressed are my own, not those of Gentoo Linux or any
other entity I am associated with unless stated otherwise.

Jon Portnoy <avenj@gentoo.org> wrote in message news:<slrnbl6oe0.oae.jdpNOSPAM@eris.oppresses.us>. ..
> In article <cd6e33e.0309010312.78b17192@posting.google.com> , Jan wrote:
> > ditzian@alltel.net (Jan) wrote in message news:<cd6e33e.0308291504.1382d69f@posting.google.c om>...
> >> Whyld-Chyld <test@example.com> wrote in message news:<JLJ3b.21718$Ad4.9032437@news3.news.adelphia. net>...
> >> > Jan wrote:
> [snip]
> >
> > If this reply is a dupe, please excuse me. I am having problems both
> > with Gentoo and with my newsposting.
> >
> > I followed the directions to get back to hdc, and, after rerunning
> > genkernel and make dep operations, which took over eight hours, things
> > appeared to be OK. I
> > generated one bad boot floppy disk, so I generated another that had no
> > error message. Then I closed down Gentoo and restarted with the boot
> > floppy in the drive, and got a CRC error. I got back to Gentoo with
> > the
> > same procedure, but I cannot find the kernel. If I complete the chroot
> > command and try to do the dd command, it says that I do not have the
> > kernel. If I do a ls in /boot, it returns nothing.
> >
> > Do I have to repeat the eight-hour build each time I try to generate a
> > Lilo disk?
> >
> > Jan
>
> Of course not.
>
> Actually, your /boot just isn't mounted.
>
> If fstab is set up properly, you can just do: mount /boot
> Otherwise, you'll need to specify the partition in the mount command.
>
> (Eight hours? Ouch. Slow box... :/)
Jon,

I am again having problems with the newsgroup.

I tried what you said and again got the crc error message, but the
two disks I created as boot disks did not show an error message during
or after the generation process, only when they were used as boot
disks. I see Loading Linux, then the dots, then the error message. I
did an ls on /boot, and it contains kernel-2.4.20-gentoo-r6, which is
what I specified, although I do not know if this is correct.

Could the kernel be too large?

Jan