Running Lucid Pup 5.2.8 on a Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop; 18 GB hard drive, 512 MB RAM, Pentium III processor.
This is just a curiosity I was hoping someone could explain. This box is strictly a learning toy and has nothing on it I care to save. I’ve changed the OS on it more times than I can count, and recently, I had Plop installed so I could boot from USB several various OS’s I wanted to try. When I removed Plop and tried to reboot, I got some sort of command line message telling me there was an error (sorry, I didn’t record the message. This has happened many times before often requiring me to reinstall the OS). However this time, I simply typed “reboot
Where is my OS residing? SOLVED!
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Where is my OS residing? SOLVED!
Last edited by Javelin Dan on Tue 22 Jan 2013, 13:56, edited 1 time in total.
What rcrsn51 said.
Along with a warning.
If you decide to create a new partition table, do try and copy over everything important first -- a drive with a new partition table is a blank drive!
...also, the obvious: you must boot from removable media (CD, USB) in order to create the partition table. If you attempt to wipe the drive you're running from, you WILL get an enormous mess -- it will only partially work, and you will get both a very badly broken operating system (if there's anything left of that, or any data really at all), and a very badly broken partition table. At that point I'd recommend giving the drive a few hours with Darik's Boot And Nuke (DBAN, google will help you there) for a secure format before proceeding.
Remember the old practical joke about typing "format c:\" at an MS-DOS prompt? This would be worse. Much, much worse...
Along with a warning.
If you decide to create a new partition table, do try and copy over everything important first -- a drive with a new partition table is a blank drive!
...also, the obvious: you must boot from removable media (CD, USB) in order to create the partition table. If you attempt to wipe the drive you're running from, you WILL get an enormous mess -- it will only partially work, and you will get both a very badly broken operating system (if there's anything left of that, or any data really at all), and a very badly broken partition table. At that point I'd recommend giving the drive a few hours with Darik's Boot And Nuke (DBAN, google will help you there) for a secure format before proceeding.
Remember the old practical joke about typing "format c:\" at an MS-DOS prompt? This would be worse. Much, much worse...
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- Joined: Tue 28 Dec 2010, 17:16
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Probably one of the boot loaders that you have used was installed itself to the hard disk. The installation of the boot loader wrote a new Master Boot Record (MBR) and destroyed the hard disk partition table. The MBR is the first 512 bytes (first sector) of the hard drive along with the partition table. A "good" boot loader makes a copy of the original MBR and stores it some place.
When you un-installed PLOP, it probably restored the original MBR allowing Grub to work.
I hope this helps
When you un-installed PLOP, it probably restored the original MBR allowing Grub to work.
I hope this helps
Enjoy life, Just Greg
Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much
Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much
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Sorry Starhawk, I didn't know you were there when I last posted. I have a copy of D-ban, used it many times. You recommend this before a fresh install I take it? Easy enough to do and good to know. While I'm at it, why does installing Plop usually take out my installation of Grub? I usually have to at least re-install Grub, but occasionally have to re-install the entire OS.
The same applies to GRUB.Javelin Dan wrote:Yeah but here's the kicker - I totally uninstalled Plop and am booting out of the Grub menu.
They both place their own boot code in the MBR of the hard drive. So one erases the other.Javelin Dan wrote:While I'm at it, why does installing Plop usually take out my installation of Grub? I usually have to at least re-install Grub, but occasionally have to re-install the entire OS.
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OK, thanks to all for clearing this up. I think I'll just start out with a fresh install - been meaning to try Puppy Precise as a permanent install on this machine anyway. It's interesting, so far Lucid 5.28 rocks on this computer better than any other OS I've tried. Youtube playback is better than anything I've tried, including Wary. But I keep searching...