Messed up system running mkinitrd

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

Hi all. I’m pretty new to running linux. I had a simple mirror raid with 3 partitions. I decided to run the mkinitrd command with no params, hoping it would just print the help (as I did not pass any params). On second thought, should have used man. But anyway, my system gives me a kernel panic message during boot up. I suspect its not able to mount my partitions.

I am able to boot with a live cd and mount my drives. So I’m in the process of saving my precious data. However, I’m not sure what I could do to get my system back without rebuilding. I suspect I hosed initrd and/or fstab.

I think I learned my lesson about running random commands. :slight_smile: Please help.

Thanks.

#2

Well, I was able to recover from my problem. Posting this for anyone who foolishly follows in my footsteps. :wink:

First of all, you need a livecd. If you can boot into the livecd os. See if you can mount your old volume.

mount -t ext3 /your/volume /mount/point

Try to back up your data (assuming you still need it).

I had to resort to FTPing it to another PC. (pita)

My system had 3 raid volumes md1,2,3 each with ext3

/dev/md1              9.9G  2.5G  7.0G  26% /
udev                  251M  108K  251M   1% /dev
/dev/md2               99M   31M   64M  33% /boot
/dev/md3              173G   96G   68G  59% /home

They way that I was able to restore my system was as follows:

Boot from a livecd
Select Install
When you get to the partition screen it will suggest to delete your partitions. Don’t do let it do it.

Click on “Edit Partition Setup”

Select custom partitioning for experts.

There you will see a button (drop down) “Expert”

I don’t recall the exact verbiage, but you will see an option to use existing partition information for the install.

You will get some warnings about how this may not work if you have certain file systems. blah blah :slight_smile:

Let the install run through. Reboot, wait for hardware detect. If all goes well, you should have your files back.

I understand that this may not work for everyone, and that I could have probably edited some config file. But I did not have much luck with that.

Hope this helps someone.

#3

delete - wrong thread

#4

Glad to read you were successful in recovering from your problem. Thank you for taking the time for sharing the approach you adopted to solve your problem.