fsck fsck fsck fsck ahhhhh!

[Master of Reality]

ahhh..... errr.... ahhh... i screwed up.

i was gonna install the latest slcakware, so i copied /etc to hdb1 that was mounted at /mnt/hd

i copied it then decided not to put it there (cuz i wanted to make hdb1 bigger first) so i typed rm -rf /etc and then unmounted /mnt/hd and then made it bigger in fdisk.

I did not restart my computer (so the partition table didnt change) before i realized that i deleted my /etc and the one on /dev/hdb1 will still be there.

But, i am not logged in as root anywhere so i cant mount /dev/hdb1 and since ther is no /etc there is no password file and hence i cannot seem to log in as root.

I do have a terminal logged in on my user account "mor" but cannot mount hdb1 from it. It says i must be root.

Any ideas how to get back my /etc !?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!!!

[Master of Reality]

erm.. ok.. how do i now stop fdisk from changing the partition table when i restart? Because since i have a slackware disk i could in theory boot onto it and then mount my hdb1 and my / and then move /etc .... couldnt i?

[Void Main]

That's quite an interesting position you have gotten yourself in to. Since your system can't see a password file any more and you can't get root then there isn't much you can do with the system as it is. I would suggest thinking very hard about what the partition table was set to prior to changing it (at least the starting cylinder) and then rebooting from alternate media, changing the partition table back, then mounting the partition. As long as you don't format your partition should still be in tact.

[Master of Reality]

excellent... good thing i made my backup partition at the beginning of the drive.. ill report how it goes.

[Master of Reality]

oh... well... i tried toms root boot disk but it doesnt have support for reiserFS which is what i run slackware on. So i went through all my other linux CDs and tried to get one to work but none of them would boot or it didnt have a shell i could use without installing it. Then i happened a slack boot disk then made the root disk to go with it on my other computer and then booted in and mounted and copied etc.... .etc.