t.septekin
June 12th, 2008, 06:23 PM
Hello you helpful boys and girls,
I was under the impression that during booting ubuntu looked at the MBR which pointed at the menu.lst which, in its turn, listed the kernel or the alternate OS to choose.
I was also under the impression that restoring the MBR, "/" and if any "/boot" from dd copies would return the device to its state when the backups were made.
I was wrong. And I would appreciate if any of you could throw some light on how the system is starting.
I have a Sony Vaio FZ21M with ubuntu 8.04 installed and it works fine. I have separate partitions for "/boot" (/dev/sda5), "/" (/dev/sda12), "/home" and "swap".
Now, to lead to my question: I installed ubuntu 7.10 in yet another partition (/dev/sda9). I configured it to include both the boot and root on the same partition, sharing my old home and swap partitions. Now when I start menu.lst gives the choice of selecting either 8.04 or 7.10, or their recovery modes; I've edited it so that 8.04 is the first choice which is selected after a short delay. All is well. However, the menu.lst is located in sda9 which means I cannot remove or change my second choice without upsetting the boot progress.
Here is what I attempted: I restored from their dd backups the MBR, "/boot" and "/" partitions to their state before the installation of 7.10. I thought that this would return my PC to its old state.
Yet when I Restart I get the 7.10 menu.lst which is in partition sda9. How come? The backups did not know about sda9's contents or 7.10; what is pointing at this location and how can I edit/modify it?
After starting ubuntu 8.04, I checked "df /" and "df /boot", they are returning the expected partitions, "/dev/sda12" and "/dev/sda", respectively.
I cannot consider this to be a problem, yet I would be grateful if anyone can tell me just what is happening.
PLEASE?
teoman
I was under the impression that during booting ubuntu looked at the MBR which pointed at the menu.lst which, in its turn, listed the kernel or the alternate OS to choose.
I was also under the impression that restoring the MBR, "/" and if any "/boot" from dd copies would return the device to its state when the backups were made.
I was wrong. And I would appreciate if any of you could throw some light on how the system is starting.
I have a Sony Vaio FZ21M with ubuntu 8.04 installed and it works fine. I have separate partitions for "/boot" (/dev/sda5), "/" (/dev/sda12), "/home" and "swap".
Now, to lead to my question: I installed ubuntu 7.10 in yet another partition (/dev/sda9). I configured it to include both the boot and root on the same partition, sharing my old home and swap partitions. Now when I start menu.lst gives the choice of selecting either 8.04 or 7.10, or their recovery modes; I've edited it so that 8.04 is the first choice which is selected after a short delay. All is well. However, the menu.lst is located in sda9 which means I cannot remove or change my second choice without upsetting the boot progress.
Here is what I attempted: I restored from their dd backups the MBR, "/boot" and "/" partitions to their state before the installation of 7.10. I thought that this would return my PC to its old state.
Yet when I Restart I get the 7.10 menu.lst which is in partition sda9. How come? The backups did not know about sda9's contents or 7.10; what is pointing at this location and how can I edit/modify it?
After starting ubuntu 8.04, I checked "df /" and "df /boot", they are returning the expected partitions, "/dev/sda12" and "/dev/sda", respectively.
I cannot consider this to be a problem, yet I would be grateful if anyone can tell me just what is happening.
PLEASE?
teoman