[nmglug] Did I totally hose my computer?

[J. Marsden DeLapp]

I was making a USB stick to use to install debian on a computer without
a CD disk drive and made a mistake that may have totally hosed the
computer I was using to make the USB stick. I figured I would ask if 
anyone knows of a way to recover from this before using my new USB stick 
to re-install debian.

I was following this:
http://blogs.koolwal.net/2009/02/25/installing-linux-on-usb-part-7-install-debian-linux-from-usb-drive/

(Actually another article that was almost exactly the same). I copied 
the following command to a terminal window:

zcat boot.img.gz > /dev/sda

And unfortunately copied a return at the end of the line which caused
the command to be run on /dev/sda before I had a chance to edit the
command to be > /dev/sdd (the usb drive).

So it appears I hosed the MBR and partition table on dev/sda.

The computer was setup with three 640 GB drives in a RAID 5 
configuration. So maybe if I can get it to boot again the stuff on sdb 
and sdc could be used to rebuild the RAID array?

On the other hand, I have a backup of the home directory and maybe doing 
a fresh install would not be too bad.

Mars

-- 
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J. Marsden DeLapp, PE
President
DeLapp & Associates, Inc. dba DeLapp Engineering.
Providing lighting and power planning, design and analysis services
for commercial, industrial and large residential facilities.
1190 Harrison Road Ste 3a
Santa Fe NM 87507
(505) 983-5557
http://DeLapp.com
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