Trashed MBR

[Rusty Carruth]

>  
> Is there a way to reconstruct the MBR from this info?

I'll have to look at that a bit, for now I want to just answer
the other thing.

> If so, would that person or persons please advise.
>  
> I was lucky, in that SuSE Linux 7.1 is on hda5, hda6 hda7
> and I had a boot disk so that it is possible access SuSE.
> And that is what makes it possible to send this request
> for help.
>  
> The Mandrake 8.0 has been installed on hda3 and I have
> looked at it with SuSE. Now if I can get a boot disk for
> it then it will be usable. And still correct the MBR.

If the partitions are right, then just boot from your
install CD (either directly or via boot floppy, and
as soon as it gives the splash screen, hit F1 and then
enter 'rescue' (followed by carriage return, of course).

After it boots, I usually do this kinda thing:

mkdir /foo
mount /dev/hda1 /foo # (or wherever / for the broken system is)
chroot /foo          # act like /foo is / (i.e. broken / is NOW actually /)
mount -a	     # mount all the stuff in the fstab.
lilo		# or whatever.
umount <everything mounted in the  mount -a step>
exit		# leave the chroot shell, so that /foo is now /foo
umount /foo     # just to be safe
reboot		# bye-bye