Barney Wolff <barney_at_databus.com> writes: > Re-install/upgrade from a cd. Upgrade should leave your files alone. Thanks, Barney -- that's what I did and it saved my butt. A few folks suggested either LiveCD images or "fixit" functionality. I was kinda dead in the water and didn't think I could download a LiveCD and burn it from another system. I played with the floppy "fixit" functionality a bit but didn't see a way to preserve /etc and such. So I used a 5.1-RELEASE CD I had and used the UPGRADE option which promised to save my /etc stuff. I specified my old mount points (fortunately, I was able to read /etc/fstab from the boot "OK" prompt and make paper notes!). I then tried -- twice -- to install the "minimal" system from the CD and both times it kernel panic'd with a page fault (in process bufdaemon, last time). For grins, I again specified my mounts (only /, /var, /tmp, /usr; I didn't bother with /home and /usr/local), and told it to install via FTP. Surprisingly, this worked -- no panic. It appears to have installed a working kernel, /bin, /usr/bin, and friends and now I'm running again. I'm now doing a "make build world" and then will do a "make kernel KERNCONF=MyKernelDefinitionFileName", then finally a "make installworld" per the UPGRADING guide. I've never used the Upgrade option to FreeBSD and I've been using it heavily since 2.2.x. It's a good thing. Many thanks to everyone who replied. I promise I'll scan UPGRADING before doing a "make *world" next time!Received on Tue Nov 18 2003 - 20:44:00 UTC
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