When you boot a Linux based system, the first thing that occurs is initialization of your hardware. After this, the Grub boot loader loads from MBR (Master Boot Record) of hard drive based on its configuration. You might see a boot menu displaying all the operating systems in a list from which you can start the system or the kernel initializing. If you don't observer any such behavior, the problem is likely to be related to Grub or MBR. In critical situations, you might need to reformat the hard drive and restore lost data from backup. But in case no backup is available or you find it in invalid state, Linux Recovery tools can help rescuing all the data from crashed hard drive.
As an example, after you install Windows in dual-boot with Linux, you might fail to boot into Linux.
Cause
Such kind of behavior might be seen if MBR gets overwritten. This doesn't allow you to boot into Linux.
Solution
You should try these methods to solve this problem:
• Try booting your system using Linux installation CD. Enter the ‘Linux rescue' and use this command at boot prompt:
root=/dev/hdXX
where, ‘hdXX' is the boot partition of your hard disk.
• Boot your system using Live Distro disc and mount the root partition of your hard disk to a temporary boot point. Next, you need to change your root to this point and reinstall Grub. To do so, you need to apply these commands in order:
mkdir /mnt/temp
mount /dev/hdb1 /mnt/temp
chroot /mnt/temp
grub-install /dev/had
• If the above measures fail, you should reformat the hard drive to fix all MBR related problems. Next, you should make sure that you have complete backup to restore the lost information in this process. If you fail to do so, you can use third-party Linux Recovery tools. Built with powerful recovery technology, such Linux Recovery applications serve as efficient tools to recover lost data. In addition, they provide you interactive user interface and advanced recovery options for complete results.
Stellar Phoenix Linux Data Recovery is a fast and comprehensive recovery tool for lost/deleted data from Linux based drives. It natively supports Ext2, Ext3 and ReiserFS file systems. It provides you advanced features like File Filter, File Mask, Create Image, RAW File Recovery and more. It is compatible with most of the Linux distros like Red Hat, Gentoo, SUSE, SlackWare, Debian etc.
Tags: hard disk, user interface, critical situations, interactive user, master boot record, boot partition, efficient tools, recovery tools, recovery options, installation cd, stellar phoenix, recovery applications