OT Problems loading Linux

From: Doc Shipley <doc_at_mdrconsult.com>
Date: Thu Jan 9 20:28:01 2003

On Thu, 9 Jan 2003, Clinton Baker wrote:

> If you use the dd command, you'll probably need to run sync afterwards to
> ensure that everything gets updated correctly. If the partition table is
> really corrupt, a simpler method may just be to run fdisk /mbr (I'm
> assuming you have a DOS boot disk or DOS/Windows is on the drive
> currently). In either case, see if fdisk (DOS or Linux) can see the
> current partition info and remove it on it's own.

  Huh???
  dd is NOT a file write. There's nothing to flush to disk, so the sync
command will be useless. And, worse, DOS "fdisk /mbr" doesn't touch the
partition table at all. It reinstates a default DOS master boot record.
Whatever partitions are defined, correct, corrupt, or whatever, will
still be there.
  "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=2" assuming it's the first
{Primary Master} IDE drive, WILL fix a corrupt partition table. BTDT
more than once.

        Doc
Received on Thu Jan 09 2003 - 20:28:01 GMT