Re-Installation on Dell Mini via "system restore": BOOT ERROR

[LeFou]

My Mini13 came with hardy preloaded, and it's got pretty messed up since, so I'd like to restore factory OS via a grub entry that looks like this:

title System Restore
root (hd0,2)
chainloader +1
boot

This points to a partition which, when mounted, has this stuff in it:

bootfs.img initrd0.img install.sh logo.png syslinux.cfg vmlinuz
boot.msg install.cfg ldlinux.sys rootfs.img vesamenu.c32

I'm not a computer, but that looks pretty good to me... but when I select this grub option it just says

BOOT ERROR

is there a log or something that might give me more info about the error?

[Leppie]

i'm not sure, but you could try and have a look at the install.sh script.
maybe it shows what it does.

[LeFou]

that script says


# This is the script that will be placed onto the USB flash drive, that will
# run on bootup to install the software onto the device.

This is not what I'm doing. I think I just want the equivalent of

(grub prompt)
> kernel (hd0,2)/vmlinuz
should I add root=/dev/sda3 here?

> initrd (hd0,2)/initrd0.img
> boot

At issue (maybe) is that there isn't a boot partition? here's df -h


/dev/sda2 35G 12G 22G 36% /
varrun 501M 100K 501M 1% /var/run
varlock 501M 0 501M 0% /var/lock
udev 501M 52K 501M 1% /dev
devshm 501M 0 501M 0% /dev/shm
lrm 501M 1.9M 499M 1% /lib/modules/2.6.24-24-lpia/volatile
/dev/sda3 1.4G 1.2G 205M 86% /mnt

[Leppie]

that script says

# This is the script that will be placed onto the USB flash drive, that will
# run on bootup to install the software onto the devic
then that's not what you're looking for...


This is not what I'm doing. I think I just want the equivalent of

(grub prompt)
> kernel (hd0,2)/vmlinuz
should I add root=/dev/sda3 here?
(hd0,2) is the same as /dev/sda3


At issue (maybe) is that there isn't a boot partition? here's df -h
you do not necessarily have to have a boot partition.

it looks like sda3 contains a bit more than the files you listed (1.2gb used)...

[darkod]

Since you are not dual booting at all, any reason why not to try simply installing any version of ubuntu? A system restore to factory state will not bring back your data and any settings anyway. Why not a clean install of Karmic, or Jaunty or what ever?

[Leppie]

Since you are not dual booting at all, any reason why not to try simply installing any version of ubuntu? A system restore to factory state will not bring back your data and any settings anyway. Why not a clean install of Karmic, or Jaunty or what ever?
good point :)