Kernel boot options removed by fault, no boot options

Hello Everyone,

First of all, I highly appreciate all Linux forum members and whole Linux community. . I wish you the best for all of you !

I will try to be short and concise: I am using Linux Mint 10 for 2 months on 2 ws, and all went good so far (Vbox, developing, Unix scripting, etc); I am not a very beginner in UNIX, having some skills in PHP/MYSQL/APACHE/BASH/LINUX - WIN/BATCH as well (several years, let's say).

But what is happening now, is putting me into a trouble: yesterday I have performed some wifi kernel modules installation with Synaptic and some new kernel were added to boot menu, some of them with --recovery option, some of them new ones. Uninstalling these last wifi modules (and probably another ones), all kernel modules (including the current (and good) one were uninstalled, of course, they disappeared from the boot menu as well).

I agree that was totally my fault because I have installed wifi modules which have required kernel recompiling, but I dd not know then the full image of this disaster.

In the last open session (just before reboot), I have seen that all kernel images/module disapperared from /root folder, /vmlinuz file disappeared too; of course using GUI boot loader, I have observed only 2 Memory test options and the M$Win OS (the second OS installed).

My issue now is: I would like to repair the previous Mint 10 installation, no to reinstall because it is taking some time to reparameter all settings .. if it is possible.

CURRENT STATUS:
> I have a Linux Mint 10 burned disk (this one where I typing these lines);
> wired/wireless network on;
> all partitions are not changed
> Linux Mint boot menu has only 2 Mem test option + 1 M$Win OS boot option
> Old Linux kernel definitions is missing from boot menu as well as from:
/root folder
in the / [root] there is no any vmlinuz binaries (I don't remember the correct name for the vmlinuz ..)
> I am able to burn any CD/DVD's, download any binaries/apps from the internet and so on.
> I am online now, ready to give you all details you need about my steps performed yesterday (as much as I remember ;(( -- poor of me ...)

QUESTIONS FOR YOU:
> I would like to avoid the full reinstallation in order to keep the old and full Linux Mint 10 destop;
> I would like to repair the linux kernel, putting it in the right place (/root, /) and create again the records in boot menu, in order to boot again LM10 as it was until yesterday evening.
> Hoping that this problem could have a solution, would you be kind to advise me a good procedure to peform (to install) as this kernel changes to do not happen again in the future.

Hoping that someone of you has encountered this before, I am here to follow your instructions. If the name of this topic could be redefined (in order to reflect this issue better), please do so or suggest me to do, I have not used so much the discussion forums until now, but I will do from now on ...

All the best for you.

Cristian

Interestingly, creating a VM to test the recovery took longer than the recovery itself

Here's the steps:

1. Boot from a Mint Live-CD or DVD
2. Open a terminal, and become root (saves the hassle of always sudo'ing) by entering sudo su -
3. Mount the root partition of your Mint install, eg mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
4. Mount some important special filesystems: for fs in proc sys dev dev/pts; do mount --bind /$fs /mnt/$fs; done
5. Switch into the original system: chroot /mnt /bin/bash
6. Install the generic kernel: apt-get install linux-generic linux-image-generic
7. Exit the chroot environment, unmount /mnt and anything below, and restart
8. After you're back in your system, best reinstall the kernel, just in case.

Best of luck

Hello Pludi,

Thanks for you answer. After many tries, I got the messages that states that the kernel is already installed, as well as the kernel image.

So far, I saw that /boot/vmlinuz and /boot/initrd are ok.

After another searches I found that the real problem is that GRUB (2) is vanished the config files, at least the LM10 records.
It has only the /memtest options and /windows boot record.

Trying again to many forums, I did not managed even with Super Grub Disk to deal, because, it seems that on the LM10 installin, I choosen (poorly) to have a ext2 fs, than ext4.
Trying another steps, I found on the SourceForge the bootscript for debugging such situations, and here are the output.

I hope to be clear for the experts to see what is my issue and the solution: in fact, I have no records in Grub/2 menu to point to /dev/sda7 LM10 installation.

Please pay some attention and give me some advice for this.

Thanks all for help.

Boot script attached. Inserting inline, on this reply, is loosing the formatting.

Hello all,

so, after more time spent to solve, I got (I suppose) the issue:

• during the installation/uninstallation of some Wifi components, a new kernel was installed; after the uninstallation, I was not able to update Grub2 to repoint to the old one.
• at the first boot the access was not possible.

All solution got from community indicated to use /usb or /cd boot, then to mount --bind the important dev's then try to update or fix Grub2. Using Software installer or apt-get I was not able to install the good kernel so I given up.

Anyway, thank a lot for attention.