"Christopher A. Martin" wrote: Hi Chris Obiviously m far from an expert but...

"Unable to open initial console" error.

if this happens again you may try alt+f2

So I tried out the fixes mentioned in the support database after someone pointed them out to me---they didn't work. I did get it down to a problem with recognizing the boot device (/dev/hda1).

So I booted on to a Windoze boot floppy, figuring I would just do a "fdisk /MBR" to return to the original state. But, MY C DRIVE DISAPPEARED!!! I ran FDISK and it just says that the filesystem type for the first partition (C drive) is "unknown".

yea.. no problem there. when you run fdisk /mbr thats it. just fdisk /mbr you never get into the fdisk program. Win just identifies the area as unknown

Then from Linux, I ran Yast, which under partition info says the filesystem type for /dev/hda1 is "MS-Dos blah blah" (just like my D-drive which is fine), but when I choose a mount point (/dosc) and exit yast, it tells me that it can't mount /dev/hda1. It just says:

RomperRoom:/home/chris # mount /dosc mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hda1, or too many mounted file systems

You may need to add the filesystem type as in mount -ext2fs /dev/hda1

So then I type:

RomperRoom:/home/chris # dumpe2fs /dev/hda1 dumpe2fs 1.10, 24-Apr-97 for EXT2 FS 0.5b, 95/08/09 dumpe2fs: Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read while trying to open /dosc Couldn't find valid filesystem superblock.

So, it's seemingly hosed. What happened? ANY HELP GREATLY APPRECIATED

Id guess you just dont have lilo installed properly so maybe try this boot with a floppy-- before lilo kicks in type linux single root =/dev/hda1 initrd= or cahnge hda1 so its your / partition when you login run yast and look at boot configuration there. Set lilo back as it was before you probably could also just run lilo but yast makes it more graphical and you can be relitively sure it went onto the mbr good luck and have fun ;-) rob -- Bookmarks <A HREF="http://www.connix.com/~dizzy73/LBM.htm"><A HREF="http://www.connix.com/~dizzy73/LBM.htm</A">http://www.connix.com/~dizzy73/LBM.htm</A</A>> - To get out of this list, please send email to majordomo@suse.com with this text in its body: unsubscribe suse-linux-e Check out the SuSE-FAQ at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A">http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A</A>> and the archiv at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A">http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A</A>>

Hi, On Fri, Dec 04, Christopher A. Martin wrote:

First I wanted to thank everyone on this list who helps the newbies like me. (and for not being *too* brutal when we say the occasional uninformed thing, etc.)

Now that I have buttered you up, I have a BIG PROBLEM. My system WAS working beautifully. But, in my attempts to install LILO, something has gone very wrong. Everything seemed to go flawlessly, LILO started, but then I got that "Unable to open initial console" error. So I tried out the fixes mentioned in the support database after someone pointed them out to me---they didn't work. I did get it down to a problem with recognizing the boot device (/dev/hda1).

You can restore the superblock with "lilo -u" (uninstall LILO). This assumes you did not corrupt the superblock backup saved by LILO as /boot/boot.0301

So I booted on to a Windoze boot floppy, figuring I would just do a "fdisk /MBR" to return to the original state. But, MY C DRIVE DISAPPEARED!!! I ran FDISK and it just says that the filesystem type for the first partition (C drive) is "unknown". Then from Linux, I ran Yast, which under partition info says the filesystem type for /dev/hda1 is "MS-Dos blah blah" (just like my D-drive which is fine), but when I choose a mount point (/dosc) and exit yast, it tells me that it can't mount /dev/hda1. It just says:

RomperRoom:/home/chris # mount /dosc mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hda1, or too many mounted file systems

So then I type:

RomperRoom:/home/chris # dumpe2fs /dev/hda1 dumpe2fs 1.10, 24-Apr-97 for EXT2 FS 0.5b, 95/08/09 dumpe2fs: Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read while trying to open /dosc Couldn't find valid filesystem superblock.

So, it's seemingly hosed. What happened? ANY HELP GREATLY APPRECIATED

thanks in advance,

chris -o) Hubert Mantel Goodbye, dots... /\\ _\_v

/dev/hda1 is not an ext2 filesystem I assume. The mount command sometimes has problems autodetecting the correct filesystem type (when module stacks need to be loaded as it is with DOS), so try explicitly given the type: mount -tmsdos /dev/hda1 /dosc - To get out of this list, please send email to majordomo@suse.com with this text in its body: unsubscribe suse-linux-e Check out the SuSE-FAQ at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A">http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A</A>> and the archiv at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A">http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A</A>>