fedora equivalent of recovery disk

Sun Dec 18 04:42:28 UTC 2011

On 12/18/2011 01:55 AM, Paul Allen Newell wrote:
<>

> The "why" was that I don't understand what failed the first two times so 
> I really don't know what I did different the last time ... but as you 
> said, I got the image and that's what matters
-=-

8-)

many things do not work 1st time, and if we spent time trying to figure
it out after 1st failure, we would never get around to 2nd or 3rd time
and success. ;)

what would be to consider, now that you did get it to work 3rd time, can
you make it work a 4th and 5th time?

think about that one. :-)

> I was hoping that you'd tell me I was doing something wrong as I was 
> pretty certain the end result would be deal with the bios so I can boot 
> from USB or alternative from Google (which seems to be pointing me to 
> Plop). I checked HP's bios updates and didn't see any update which 
> talked about "adding USB boot support", so I'm going to try the Plop 
> method -- hopefully I will be able to get the confirm that the USB is 
> good before I reinstall original OS for hardware repair.
-=-

*note - booting from usb will/may fail*.

my bad. i failed to mention before:

'/etc/fstab' is wrong, as are files in '/boot/' and '/boot/grub/grub.conf'.
these files deal with system being on hdd, not usb.

therefore, these files will need to be backed up and changed to boot from
usb.

as for plop, i am aware of it from looking it up when it was mentioned
in another thread. i do not know more than having look at 'features'.
i looked again and read a little further. if you can follow what is
written, you should be able to boot usb.

do consider this, when you boot usb, all you are going to prove is that
you can boot. you will not be checking all files. only way to do that
is to run a file by file comparison. for the time that would take, you
could do a fresh install and configuration.

ok, to deal with bios upgrade.

does you bios boot show screens or a graphic banner?

does bios have ability to show 'detail' screens during boot?

if so, boot in that mode to see what is there. some will give an option
of 'other' or something to that effect.

also, during detail boot, watch to see who wrote bios, and note the
number and year. you may need to go to them for new bios if new hp bios
does not have usb boot option.

hp may not note that later bios has usb boot, but if you pull latest for
your system, and install it, you may find usb is there.

it may be too late to make a 'count' check of files of 'clone' type backup
to original because of your having possible changes to your hdd files that
will not show on usb. you could use 'rsync' to update usb, but do be aware
that that may or may not cause problems.

*normally*, when you use a clone type or any of all the other good ways
of making a backup, it will be good. only time i have every had a problem
is when there was a faulty hdd or memory involved.

before and after i make full backups, i run

  ls -lRA > path.00xx

in root directory of original and then backup.

then copy source's file to backup's root directory.

for some strange reason, file size of the 2 have seldom been same, and if
not, to make a quick check, i run a line count with 'wc' on both files;

  wc -l path.0001 > wc-l.path.0001
  wc -l path.0011 > wc-l.path.0011

then view files for counts. if both are same, and usually are, great. if
not, try a word count with '-w'.

  wc -w path.0001 > wc-w.path.0001
  wc -w path.0011 > wc-w.path.0011

then view files for counts.

run 'man wc' if not familiar with command.

_if_ they both fail, you can find where by taking a longer time checking
using 'diff';

  diff path.0001 path.0011

run 'man diff' if not familiar with command.

now, here is a 'farm out' way and thought to check you usb files.

on usb stick, backup '/etc/fstab', edit file to show usb as '/'.

in any directory, as root user, run;

  rpm -V * > rpm-V.0001

to verify all files.

then with usb mounted;

  chroot /mnt/usb/

then run;

  rpm -V * > rpm-V.0011
  exit

  cp /mnt/usb/rpm-V.0011 .

and verify the 2 files against each other.

run 'man chroot' and 'man rpm' if not familiar with commands.

*note* you may have to use 'info' instead of 'man'.

above just might be easiest of all ways to check all system files.

hth.

'crash time', t-minus 2 hours and counting. 8-D

later.

-- 

peace out.

tc.hago,

g
.

*please reply "plain text" only. "html text" are deleted*

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