Re: Help regards lost boot disc label

["Chris Gilbert" <chris%dokein.co.uk@localhost>]

mclinch said:
> Is there any one who can help with a cats server failure? A power cut
> killed it

We'll try our best 8)

> It refuses to boot saying No disklabel  Input/output error.

hmm, that's rather surprising, the disklabel isn't normally written to
other than at install time.  Does it list the disk as a device to boot
from?

Does the machine have multiple disks?  I'm wondering if it's trying to
boot off the wrong disk?

> I have the info on the original disclabel but how can this help me
> restore the disc if it
> is salvageable.

How much detail do you have about the disklabel?
I believe you'd be able to rescue it using some of the utilties on the
boot/install disk.  I suspect the utility you'd want is disklabel, see the
online man pages:
http://netbsd.gw.com/cgi-bin/man-cgi?disklabel+.cats+NetBSD-1.6

Note I suspect that others would be able to give better advice, I've never
had to rebuild a disklabel.

> If I have to reinstall netBSD I would use 1.6.1 which I have an iso
> image of.
> I looked inside the iso image and all contents of the sets are .tgz. Is
> this all sorted out on installation?
> I am new to BSD being a unix/linux type as yet.

NetBSD installs using .tgz files, it decompresses them as it goes.  In
theory the 1.6.1 CD iso should also have an install kernel at the top
level so you can boot from the disk.

Once you've booted the install kernel it will come up with a menu, if you
pick exit, you'll be taken to a command line, from which you should be
able to run disklabel.

Cheers,
Chris