OS recovery

[Mark]

On Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 1:19 PM, Rashkae <ubuntu at tigershaunt.com> wrote:
> On 10-11-10 12:49 AM, Mark wrote:
>> However, I can't help wondering what, if any, is a better recovery
>> method when the primary /boot fails before the OS goes anywhere.
>>
>> (This might have had something to do with the fact that I also had
>> previously set my /dev/sdb to be the boot disk in the PROM and
>> completely forgot about that little detail....)
>>
>> Any suggestions?
>>
>
> In this case, because the problem was a video driver install failure,
> the recovery method would have been to Press/Hold the Shift key while
> grub starts up to bring up the grub boot menu, and choose Recovery mode
> from there.  There would have been a menu of options, one of which is to
> fix X, (basically returns your X settings to blank default.)
>
I'm not sure it made it up that far - it got to the device rundown
after the initial boot PROM hardware display, then when it normally
goes black right before the grub menu comes up, it never went black.

I created a shell script this morning to do a full system backup to my
two fall-back partitions (one for /boot and one for /), but that only
makes the pain slightly less if the primary fails - at least I should
be able to boot any rescue CD or flash drive, copy the backups over
the primaries and reboot.  I hadn't taken that precaution before this
disaster.  Difference in time - about an hour of frustration and
psychic pain.

I'll keep this in mind if the situation ever comes up again (ha ha ha
- more likely I'll have long forgotten it by then).

Thanks.

Mark