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Lost inittab!

Well, I went a little too adventurous with pushing X to the limits with my laptop running Mandrake 9. It resulted in a hard crash. Usually Linux is pretty good at coming back up and
repairing the file systems.

This time, it choked. Apparently, the /etc/inittab/ file got corrupted. After a gasp and re-collecting my thoughts, here is how I got the system back.

• First, searched for the boot floppy. Couldn't find it. Duh!

• Then, got Mandrake installation disks. Using CD number 1, I booted the installer.

• Press F1_ and then type in _rescue to go into rescue mode.

• In the rescue mode menu, made sure I had chosen *do not mount* file systems from the disk.

• In the rescue mode menu, chose to go to console.

• From the shell, I used lsparts to list out my disk partitions. I knew my root partition is in _/dev/hda6/_

• Ran fsck /dev/hda6 and chose yes to correct all errors.

• Reboot. Bummer - the inittab file is completely lost

• Luckily I had a Red Hat 8 machine nearby. Booted that up, took the laptop next to it.

• Again using the rescue mode bootup from CD-Rom, I copied in the file from my Red Hat machine (using old fashion method - lookup and type it in!).

• Reboot.

• Pray.

• Yes, it all works!

There must be better ways to do this. I simply didn't want to spend much
time researching options.

Now, to make a boot floppy and to keep it in a safe place. Go to Mandrake Control Center - Boot - Boot Disk to make the disk.

I sincerely believe making mistakes and fixing things is the best way to learn. My second week at a job as standby UNIX admin 10 years ago, I (or rather my luck) managed to delete /etc/gettydefs. Luckily, I had a senior guy who went to another machine to take a print-out of one entry and forbade me to logout of my session (it was the only one left). He used my session to type that one single entry. Then he could go to another console and work peacefully from there!