[PLUG] how to re-install GRUb

[Jeff Schwaber]

> Knoppix also makes a great recovery CD.

Having just done this, let me agree, but throw in the following caveat I
discovered for anyone who ends up attempting to recover from a Knoppix
CD:

Knoppix, when it boots, creates an /etc/fstab with all of the partitions
it recognizes, but unfortunately adds an option to each hard disk
partition -- nodev, I think-- that makes it impossible to directly
access devices from within the mounted partition. So you do something
like this:

mount a disk, chroot to within it, and attempt to run lilo (or install
grub). And it says /dev/hda: Permission denied.

Don't let fstab mount stuff. 

instead of mount /dev/hda3 (and letting fstab figure out the options) do
it manually: mount -t ext2 (or ext3) /dev/hda3 /mnt/hda3

Most of you realized this, I'm sure, but I didn't find it anywhere in
googling, so I'm emailing this so it'll show up in google...plug gets
web archived, right?

Jeff

(discovery of the day: it's trivial to get an external USB mouse to work
with a laptop while keeping the touchpad working at the same time. ask
me how if you're interested).