Urgent Help Needed for Boot Problems After Data Restoration

Rick Stevens ricks at nerd.com
Wed Nov 18 19:06:23 UTC 2009


On 11/18/2009 10:33 AM, Mr. Teo En Ming (Zhang Enming) wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> After restoring data from a backup image set for a 500GB harddisk to a
> 1000 GB harddisk, I am unable to boot up my F11 OS. I have already
> restored *both* the MBR backup and the dump output from sfdisk.
>
> What else is missing? I am stuck at a blinking cursor at the top left
> corner of the screen. GRUB is not loading and I am unable to select
> any kernel to boot.
>
> Using System Rescue CD, I am able to activate all the logical volumes
> and all the volume groups that were restored. I am also able to mount
> all the logical volumes and access the restored filesystems.
>
> So I think the filesystems are restored properly. So I think it is the
> problem with MBR, sfdisk dump output restoration, or GRUB. Is there a
> problem with restoring data of a 500 GB harddisk to a 1 TB harddisk?

Well, let's see...the geometry between the two disks are going to be
different so the partition table's going to be screwed up.  That may
cause an issue with grub.  It's always dangerous to use block-level
backups and restores when the drives are of different sizes or geometries.

I'd recommend you boot off the DVD in rescue mode, then use fdisk and
the other tools to verify that the partition tables are in good shape.
You should also probably fsck each filesystem just to make sure.  Once
all that's done, you may have to rebuild the grub environment:

	chroot /mnt/sysimage
	grub-install /dev/sda   (or whichever disk it is)
	exit           (gets out of the chroot)
	exit           (gets out of the rescue boot)

Pop the DVD out and try to boot again.  That may fix it.
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- Rick Stevens, Systems Engineer                      ricks at nerd.com -
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-         We have enough youth, how about a fountain of SMART?       -
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