Help! Linux won't boot and my nephew is coming for dinner!

[gaf at blu.org (Jerry Feldman)]

I've upgraded and been in this situation. If you created a rescue disk, you 
should be able to easily correct this situation. If not, you can boot you 
install CD and fix your lilo.conf.
I run SuSE, and there are 2 ways I can fix things like this by booting the 
installation CD:
1. Use one of the virtual terminals (alt-fn or ctl-alt-fn). Then you are 
running linux in the ram disk, and you can mount the boot and root disks.
2. Do and upgrade install, installing nothing. Once the install is complete 
you have some options to boot the installed system. You can fix your LILO 
at that time.
Bill Horne wrote:
> Thanks for reading this: I've got a bootup problem, and need help fast.
> 
> I'm upgrading from 2.2.14 to 2.2.16, and after doing the RPM's I ran
> LILO.  I left out the initrd parm in lilo.conf (on the new kernel), and
> now the boot halts with a LIL- error. The book says I moved the map
> table.
> 
> Now, the complicated part: I have a SCSI disk, running on an Adaptec
> 2940 card. When I try to run the RedHat rescue option with the CD, it
> thinks for a second, says it's loading the AIC7XXX driver, and then
> dies. I don't have a boot floppy.
> 
> My nephew - to whom I gave a long lecture about backups and not fooling
> around with my sister's wintel box and always asking for help if he
> didn't know what he was doing - will be here today for the "end of
> summer" party. I'll never hear the end of it if he finds out. Never.
> 
> Short of reinstalling, what are my options?
> 
> Bill Horne
> 781 784-7287
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org>
Boston Linux and Unix user group
http://www.blu.org


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