linux may not boot if you have installed another operating system. some operating systems assume that you have no other operating systems on your computer. when such an operating system is installed, it overwrites the master boot record that contained the linux lilo bootloader. if this happens, linux will not boot.
any computer can experience a hardware or software failure for many reasons. with the hp visualize linux workstation, it might happen because of problems with a hard drive or because lilo was not run after building a new kernel.
rescue mode can give you access to the system so you can try to solve the problem or, at least, make copies of important files.
booting your system in rescue mode
to boot your system in rescue mode, enter the following parameter at the installation boot prompt:
boot: linux rescue
you can get to the installation boot prompt in one of these ways:
1. by booting your system from the diskette or cd-rom that came with your red hat linux boxed set.
2. by booting from a network or pcmcia boot diskette. these methods assume your network connection is working and require you to identify the network host and transfer type.
once you have your system in rescue mode, a prompt appears:
bash#
from this prompt, you can use the following commands:
the man command is not available in rescue mode. make sure you know how to use all the above commands before you use rescue mode.
if your root filesystem is undamaged, you can mount it and then run any standard linux utility. for example, suppose your root filesystem is in /dev/hda5. here is how to mount this partition:
mount -t ext2 /dev/hda5 /foo
where /foo is a directory that you have created.
now you can run man and other utilities. at this point, you are running linux in single-user mode.
if you do not know the names of your linux partitions, you can guess; mounting non-existent partitions will do no harm.