[Wylug-help] Mandrake has seriously screwed up just by doing media updates

[C.Mackins at Bradford.ac.uk]

Quoting Anne Wilson <cannewilson at tiscali.co.uk>:

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> On Saturday 15 Jan 2005 15:07, you wrote:
> >
> > Hi Anne, thanks again.
> >
> > Well, earlier I changed my mirrors and did the urpmi update as suggested -
> > but nothing in the way of lost apps/work returned.
> >
> > I opened a console, did su>root and tried changing the msec values from 4
> > to 3, 3 to 2, but again nothing has changed - I still have lost my apps/all
> > work and the shell prompt still remains as 'bash-2.05b$'
> >
> > This is so bizzare as I was not doing anything else at all, other than
> > trying to install updates through the MCC when all this occured.
> >
> > Thanks again for you help, though I now feel that my system is probably
> > beyond repair.
> >

Hi Anne, your help in this has been very much appreciated.

> If it comes to a re-install you will have lost all your apps, but your work
> should be under your home directory, so you should be able to recover it - at
> least, if you have /home on a separate partition?  If you don't you need to
> get a live CD - Knoppix or similar - to access your files and copy them off
> to safety.  I've never tried doing that with anything that won't fit on a
> floppy though.  If you have any spare disk space (or an old disk you could
> put in for now) could you create a directory there a copy files into that?
>

Reinstalling is my concern exactly for the reasons that you outline.  My
particular problem though is that after doing the initial media updates, the
'behaviour' of the reboot, was that of a fresh install (once I'd logged in that
is) in that the Mandrake Welcome window appeared, and of course the apps my
work had just 'vanished'. All my bookmarks have gone too.  Though there is the
puzzle of the shell line in console 'bash-2.05b$'

 /home is on a separate partition - now to all intents and purposes, I can cope
with the loss of apps, I can always reinstall (firfox/thunderbird/StarOffice7)
but the work which was saved there cannot be seen at all.  So I'm unable to
recover my work. I've installed a knoppix disk - and again I can't see anything
of my work folders (though to be honest, I'm not sure I'm using it properly as
a recovery tool).

There is a small breadcrumb to all of this.  On the task bar, instead of the
StarOffice7 icon, its been replaced by the blue cogged wheel icon.  Clicking on
this brings a KDE error which says:

The desktop entry file /home/chris/.kde/share/apps/kicker/staroffice7-4.desktop
has no Type=... entry.

This is the only trace that the StarOffice app even existed!


> So far no other suggestions have come up, but then a lot of people aren't
> reading at this time of day.  Many are in USA or Canada, and tend to be
> around in our evenings.  If you can hang on for a few more hours, or
> preferably until morning, it might be worth it.
>
I'm really grateful that you've tried to help me out.  I'll hold on for a day or
two anyway as I really need to be doing some more work anyway.  a lot of it
now being catchup!!

Chris.
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