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Dealing with Catastrophic Failures

Most anyone who has worked with computers for any length of time knows that sometimes our worst fears come true: A computer system suffers a failure of some kind, which prevents it from even starting properly any longer.

Although Linux is a very stable operating system, if you use it long enough, you are still likely to encounter a situation at some point in which Linux is unable to start properly, even though your computer can at least be powered on and your hard drive appears to be functioning.

Red Hat has provided a special tool called rescue that can be used to try to salvage some of your data in situations like this.

Starting rescue

To start the rescue tool, insert your Fedora Core 4 install DVD or CD-ROM ...