(Solved) Unetbootin overwrote my vmlinuz!

[Aradalf]

Ok, so that was a bit melodramatic, but that's basically what happened. I wanted to try out Debian, as I had never really tried it out. So I went into Unetbootin, selected the netinstall iso, and did a frugal install to the hard drive. Less than 5 seconds after it started, it asked if I wanted to overwrite my vmlinuz, as one was already there. I accidentally clicked "Yes to All", which was right next to "No". So it overwrote my vmlinuz, and then I stupidly rebooted, eager to try out Debian. Well, I couldn't get Debian to work, and then I couldn't get PCLOS to boot either. Luckily I still had another partition with Phoenix-Mini installed, but now how can I recover PCLOS? Do I have to create a new vmlinuz somehow?

[Yankee]

Ok, so that was a bit melodramatic, but that's basically what happened. I wanted to try out Debian, as I had never really tried it out. So I went into Unetbootin, selected the netinstall iso, and did a frugal install to the hard drive. Less than 5 seconds after it started, it asked if I wanted to overwrite my vmlinuz, as one was already there. I accidentally clicked "Yes to All", which was right next to "No". So it overwrote my vmlinuz, and then I stupidly rebooted, eager to try out Debian. Well, I couldn't get Debian to work, and then I couldn't get PCLOS to boot either. Luckily I still had another partition with Phoenix-Mini installed, but now how can I recover PCLOS? Do I have to create a new vmlinuz somehow?

The current PCL Magazine has an install Grub article.   Might help.
I've only had success using that program to put an iso
on a W95FAT32 formatted flash drive.   Grub expert req'd sounds
like to me.   Curious problem.


Patrick013

[Aradalf]

Ok, so that was a bit melodramatic, but that's basically what happened. I wanted to try out Debian, as I had never really tried it out. So I went into Unetbootin, selected the netinstall iso, and did a frugal install to the hard drive. Less than 5 seconds after it started, it asked if I wanted to overwrite my vmlinuz, as one was already there. I accidentally clicked "Yes to All", which was right next to "No". So it overwrote my vmlinuz, and then I stupidly rebooted, eager to try out Debian. Well, I couldn't get Debian to work, and then I couldn't get PCLOS to boot either. Luckily I still had another partition with Phoenix-Mini installed, but now how can I recover PCLOS? Do I have to create a new vmlinuz somehow?

The current PCL Magazine has an install Grub article.   Might help.
I've only had success using that program to put an iso
on a W95FAT32 formatted flash drive.   Grub expert req'd sounds
like to me.   Curious problem.


Patrick013

Thanks for your reply, Patrick13. I did look at that article, but don't see how it could help me. I know that my vmlinuz has been overwritten by the vmlinuz of Debian, and quite possibly a few other files that I don't know about, due to me having clicked the "Yes to All" option. Hopefully I can figure out a way to create a new vmlinuz.

[Yankee]

Ok, so that was a bit melodramatic, but that's basically what happened. I wanted to try out Debian, as I had never really tried it out. So I went into Unetbootin, selected the netinstall iso, and did a frugal install to the hard drive. Less than 5 seconds after it started, it asked if I wanted to overwrite my vmlinuz, as one was already there. I accidentally clicked "Yes to All", which was right next to "No". So it overwrote my vmlinuz, and then I stupidly rebooted, eager to try out Debian. Well, I couldn't get Debian to work, and then I couldn't get PCLOS to boot either. Luckily I still had another partition with Phoenix-Mini installed, but now how can I recover PCLOS? Do I have to create a new vmlinuz somehow?

The current PCL Magazine has an install Grub article.   Might help.
I've only had success using that program to put an iso
on a W95FAT32 formatted flash drive.   Grub expert req'd sounds
like to me.   Curious problem.


Patrick013

Thanks for your reply, Patrick13. I did look at that article, but don't see how it could help me. I know that my vmlinuz has been overwritten by the vmlinuz of Debian, and quite possibly a few other files that I don't know about, due to me having clicked the "Yes to All" option. Hopefully I can figure out a way to create a new vmlinuz.

Well vmlinuz is a GRUB file isn't it ?   
And I don't think Unetbootin is really designed for hard drives.
For what it says to do it is rather infallible so far...installing
iso's on flash's.    There's a warning message if you go to a
hard drive as far as I can remember.     I can only add moral
support as I am only a casual LINUX user, but I would say
never user Unetbootin for anything destination but a flash drive !

The whole GRUB structure, I would have to do it.


regards,

Patrick013

[Aradalf]

Ok, so that was a bit melodramatic, but that's basically what happened. I wanted to try out Debian, as I had never really tried it out. So I went into Unetbootin, selected the netinstall iso, and did a frugal install to the hard drive. Less than 5 seconds after it started, it asked if I wanted to overwrite my vmlinuz, as one was already there. I accidentally clicked "Yes to All", which was right next to "No". So it overwrote my vmlinuz, and then I stupidly rebooted, eager to try out Debian. Well, I couldn't get Debian to work, and then I couldn't get PCLOS to boot either. Luckily I still had another partition with Phoenix-Mini installed, but now how can I recover PCLOS? Do I have to create a new vmlinuz somehow?

The current PCL Magazine has an install Grub article.   Might help.
I've only had success using that program to put an iso
on a W95FAT32 formatted flash drive.   Grub expert req'd sounds
like to me.   Curious problem.


Patrick013

Thanks for your reply, Patrick13. I did look at that article, but don't see how it could help me. I know that my vmlinuz has been overwritten by the vmlinuz of Debian, and quite possibly a few other files that I don't know about, due to me having clicked the "Yes to All" option. Hopefully I can figure out a way to create a new vmlinuz.

Well vmlinuz is a GRUB file isn't it ?   
And I don't think Unetbootin is really designed for hard drives.
For what it says to do it is rather infallible so far...installing
iso's on flash's.    There's a warning message if you go to a
hard drive as far as I can remember.     I can only add moral
support as I am only a casual LINUX user, but I would say
never user Unetbootin for anything destination but a flash drive !

The whole GRUB structure, I would have to do it.


regards,

Patrick013

I know that Unetbootin installed as a frugal install is quite easy to do from Windoze, but I guess that's because there's no grub on the Windows partition. Infact, I used it many times to boot PCLOS as a live cd! But I guess a frugal install of Linux within Linux is not good. Oh well.

[Yankee]

Ok, so that was a bit melodramatic, but that's basically what happened. I wanted to try out Debian, as I had never really tried it out. So I went into Unetbootin, selected the netinstall iso, and did a frugal install to the hard drive. Less than 5 seconds after it started, it asked if I wanted to overwrite my vmlinuz, as one was already there. I accidentally clicked "Yes to All", which was right next to "No". So it overwrote my vmlinuz, and then I stupidly rebooted, eager to try out Debian. Well, I couldn't get Debian to work, and then I couldn't get PCLOS to boot either. Luckily I still had another partition with Phoenix-Mini installed, but now how can I recover PCLOS? Do I have to create a new vmlinuz somehow?

The current PCL Magazine has an install Grub article.   Might help.
I've only had success using that program to put an iso
on a W95FAT32 formatted flash drive.   Grub expert req'd sounds
like to me.   Curious problem.


Patrick013

Thanks for your reply, Patrick13. I did look at that article, but don't see how it could help me. I know that my vmlinuz has been overwritten by the vmlinuz of Debian, and quite possibly a few other files that I don't know about, due to me having clicked the "Yes to All" option. Hopefully I can figure out a way to create a new vmlinuz.

Well vmlinuz is a GRUB file isn't it ?   
And I don't think Unetbootin is really designed for hard drives.
For what it says to do it is rather infallible so far...installing
iso's on flash's.    There's a warning message if you go to a
hard drive as far as I can remember.     I can only add moral
support as I am only a casual LINUX user, but I would say
never user Unetbootin for anything destination but a flash drive !

The whole GRUB structure, I would have to do it.


regards,

Patrick013

I know that Unetbootin installed as a frugal install is quite easy to do from Windoze, but I guess that's because there's no grub on the Windows partition. Infact, I used it many times to boot PCLOS as a live cd! But I guess a frugal install of Linux within Linux is not good. Oh well.

No, Unetbootin is to install a LINUX iso to an w95fat32 flash drive period.
If it has any other useful purpose you just found out about it.
Don't despair.   PCL has the best support staff in the country.


Patrick013

[Old-Polack]

Well vmlinuz is a GRUB file isn't it ?   

No, on a liveCD it's the Linux kernel itself. On an installed system it's a link to the actual kernel that also has a version number attached to it; ie vmlinuz-2.6.33.7-pclos6.bfs

[root@fatman ~]# ls -l /boot |grep vmlinuz
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      27 Dec  6 16:56 vmlinuz -> vmlinuz-2.6.33.7-pclos6.bfs

[Bald Brick]

vmlinuz is not a Grub file. It's either a compressed bootable Linux kernel or a link to a compressed bootable Linux kernel -- which might be called something like vmlinuz-<kernel-version>.

If it is a link that has been overwritten, you can recreate it on a normal hard drive install. But most likely it's not the only link that has been overwritten, so you might also have to recreate a number of other links in /boot (config, initrd.img, kernel.h and System.map) -- or you could edit /boot/grub/menu.lst so that it calls the kernel directly.

But as you installed using Unetbootin I fear that it's the kernel itself that has been overwritten, and in that case you have to reinstall it.

Unfortunately I have never even considered using Unetbootin for a hard disk install, so I can't be more specific.

Edited after I read O-P's post.
And twice more after I had read Aradalf's next post.

[Aradalf]

vmlinuz is not a Grub file. It's either a compressed bootable Linux kernel or a link to a compressed bootable Linux kernel -- which might be called something like vmlinuz-<kernel-version>.

If it is a link that has been overwritten, you can recreate it on a normal hard drive install. But most likely it's not the only link that has been overwritten, so you would have to recreate a number of other links too -- or you can edit /boot/grub/menu.lst so that it calls the kernel directly.

But as you installed using Unetbootin I suspect that it's the kernel itself that has been overwritten, and in that case you have to reinstall it.

Unfortunately I have never even considered using Unetbootin for a hard disk install, so I can't be more specific.

Edited after I read O-P's post.

The kernel was not overwritten. The vmlinuz-2.6.33.7-pclos6.bfs is still present in /boot
So hopefully I can fix my system just by making vmlinuz a symbolic link to vmlinuz-2.6.33.7-pclos6.bfs?
Where is vmlinuz generally located?

[Aradalf]

I opened a terminal in the /boot of my PCLOS partition, su'd to root, and I did:

Code: [Select]

ln -s vmlinuz-2.6.33.7-pclos6.bfs vmlinuz

I'm now going to reboot and see if it worked.

[Bald Brick]

vmlinuz is not a Grub file. It's either a compressed bootable Linux kernel or a link to a compressed bootable Linux kernel -- which might be called something like vmlinuz-<kernel-version>.

If it is a link that has been overwritten, you can recreate it on a normal hard drive install. But most likely it's not the only link that has been overwritten, so you would have to recreate a number of other links too -- or you can edit /boot/grub/menu.lst so that it calls the kernel directly.

But as you installed using Unetbootin I suspect that it's the kernel itself that has been overwritten, and in that case you have to reinstall it.

Unfortunately I have never even considered using Unetbootin for a hard disk install, so I can't be more specific.

Edited after I read O-P's post.

The kernel was not overwritten. The vmlinuz-2.6.33.7-pclos6.bfs is still present in /boot
So hopefully I can fix my system just by making vmlinuz a symbolic link to vmlinuz-2.6.33.7-pclos6.bfs?
Where is vmlinuz generally located?

vmlinuz is normally in /boot. I edited my post once more while you posted. I'll mark what I added in blue.

[Bald Brick]

I opened a terminal in the /boot of my PCLOS partition, su'd to root, and I did:

Code: [Select]

ln -s vmlinuz-2.6.33.7-pclos6.bfs vmlinuz

I'm now going to reboot and see if it worked.

If it doesn't, look at the blue edits in my first post. (You are too fast for me.  )

[Yankee]

Well vmlinuz is a GRUB file isn't it ?   

No, on a liveCD it's the Linux kernel itself. On an installed system it's a link to the actual kernel that also has a version number attached to it; ie vmlinuz-2.6.33.7-pclos6.bfs





[root@fatman ~]# ls -l /boot |grep vmlinuz
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      27 Dec  6 16:56 vmlinuz -> vmlinuz-2.6.33.7-pclos6.bfs

Thank You.    I can only pray it isn't my hard drive.
Well the damn thing messed then.    Yeah, the whole
thing has to be rewritten isn't it ?     Whatever.
main point is to fix his lousy grub, isn't it  ?

patrick013

[Aradalf]

I booted successfully! I'm now posting this from within my PCLOS-LXDE partition. Luckily it seems Unetbootin didn't overwrite anything besides vmlinuz. Then from Unetbootin, I uninstalled the Debian Frugal Install. Thanks for all your help Patrick013, Old-Polack, and Bald Brick!

Oh, by the way, do you guys have any recommendation on how to do either a LiveUSB or frugal install of Debian? I couldn't get a Unetbootin LiveUSB to work.(or,as shown by this thread, a Unetbootin frugal install )

Edit: Does PCLOS-LiveUSB work for other distros?

[Old-Polack]

Well vmlinuz is a GRUB file isn't it ?   

No, on a liveCD it's the Linux kernel itself. On an installed system it's a link to the actual kernel that also has a version number attached to it; ie vmlinuz-2.6.33.7-pclos6.bfs





[root@fatman ~]# ls -l /boot |grep vmlinuz
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      27 Dec  6 16:56 vmlinuz -> vmlinuz-2.6.33.7-pclos6.bfs

Thank You.    I can only pray it isn't my hard drive.
Well the darn thing messed then.    Yeah, the whole
thing has to be rewritten isn't it ?     Whatever.
main point is to fix his lousy grub, isn't it  ?

patrick013

Grub wasn't involved at all. The link was overwritten to point somewhere other than the proper kernel. Recreating the link to point to the proper kernel solved the problem.