A drive died, but I still ave a bootable system.

[wbrokow1]

One sata drive died that had /var /run /tmp etc, EXCEPT I had / and /boot on another drive.
I had also 2 other drives that are fine, they had backup data on them.Thank God.
The system is bootable to the 2.6.22 kernel, but I guess all programs are wiped.
I did have /var /etc and /tmp on logical volumes which are dead also.
I don't need that anymore. I will forsake the logical volumes and rebuild the system from its current state
to a workable, usable system. I know I have to recreate the fstab file and recreate the lost directories and such. but my system has been
running so well for so long I need the quick "talk me though it " routine. to recreate everything.

Again, the system boots to a command drive login and is functional except for that broken SATA drive, which is removed.
Can anyone take a few minutes and talk me through the revamp, other wise I may wipe more things that were running just fine.

Thanks for any input or guidance.

PS: will a live CD be needed OR helpful?

[Nick C]

using a livecd would probably be best imo, as it would give you the backup of a fully running system so you can have a webbrowser open, download stuff with wget, etc. The best way i think to recover would be to download a stage 3 file and extract it somewhere else (not to / or you wipe over everything!) then mount your drives and copy the missing directories from the stage 3. You will have lost some configs, and those you have will need remaking (make.conf and your profile link being pretty important). You will also have lost your world file so portage wont know what packages you have installed so you will have to reinstall them all to get them added back to your world file.

There may be other things to do, or better ways so id maybe wait a bit and see if anyone else has any suggestions
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[gerard27]

If you can download it I'd recommend sysrescuecd.
After booting it you can mount your partition(s) on /mnt/*
Fire up "mc" and you can browse the partition,edit conf. files.
I have used it many times when I had problems.
Gerard.
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To install Gentoo I use sysrescuecd.Based on Gentoo,has firefox to browse Gentoo docs and mc to browse (and edit) files.
The same disk can be used for 32 and 64 bit installs.
You can follow the Handbook verbatim.
http://www.sysresccd.org/Download

[wbrokow1]

Nick C

If I am booted from the livecd how do I mount an unseen drive and extract the stage3 to it.
sorry for the newbie question but I am not that linux savy.

THanks,