Partitions Acting Weird. Help Please.

[nujinini]

HI guys!

I was working on our PC and screwed up my logical partition. Not much of a concern there but the problem starts when I was trying to repair them. My gparted says that my whole HD is empty. In fact, when I try to install an OS, it wanted to install it on the whole HD (80-G).

This is not accurate though since my windows partition is still well, I think.

root@PartedMagic:/media/sda1# ls
AUTOEXEC.BAT*              RECYCLER/
CONFIG.SYS*                System Volume Information/
Documents and Settings/    WINDOWS/
IO.SYS*                    boot.ini*
MSDOS.SYS*                 ntldr*
NTDETECT.COM*              pagefile.sys*
Program Files/
root@PartedMagic:/media/sda1#

I wanted to wipe out sda2 sda3 & sda4 so that I can start a fresh install but I just can't mount everything.

root@PartedMagic:/# mount /media/sda2
mount: can't find /media/sda2 in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab

root@PartedMagic:/# mount /media/sda3
mount: can't find /media/sda3 in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab

root@PartedMagic:/# mount /media/sda4
mount: can't find /media/sda4 in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab

root@PartedMagic:~# mount /dev/sda3 /media/sda3
mount: you must specify the filesystem type

root@PartedMagic:~# mount /dev/sda2 /media/sda2
mount: you must specify the filesystem type

root@PartedMagic:~# mount /dev/sda4 /media/sda4
/dev/sda4 looks like swapspace - not mounted
mount: you must specify the filesystem type
root@PartedMagic:~# 

root@PartedMagic:/# cat /etc/fstab
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=4,mode=620 0 0
shm /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs devgid=14,devmode=0660 0 0
/dev/sda1 /media/sda1 ntfs-3g defaults 0 0 #harddisk
/dev/hda /media/cdrom1 auto defaults,ro 0 0 #cdrom

root@PartedMagic:/# cat /etc/mtab
proc /proc proc rw 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs rw 0 0
/dev/loop0 /lib/unionfs/usr squashfs rw 0 0
unionfs /usr unionfs rw,dirs=/usr=rw:/lib/unionfs/usr=ro 0 0
/dev/loop1 /lib/unionfs/firmware squashfs rw 0 0
unionfs /lib/firmware unionfs rw,dirs=/lib/firmware=rw:/lib/unionfs/firmware=ro 0 0
/dev/loop2 /lib/unionfs/modules squashfs rw 0 0
unionfs /lib/modules unionfs rw,dirs=/lib/modules=rw:/lib/unionfs/modules=ro 0 0
usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs rw 0 0
/dev/sda1 /media/sda1 fuseblk rw,allow_other,blksize=4096 0 0
root@PartedMagic:/#

However, I am confused because fdisk -l says I have those partitions.

  ...
root@PartedMagic:~# fdisk -l
Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 5 will be corrected by w(rite)

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x18cc18cb

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1        2004    16097098+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2            2005        3481    11864002+  83  Linux
/dev/sda3            3482      269354  2135619645+   5  Extended
/dev/sda4            3482        3549      546210   82  Linux swap / Solaris
root@PartedMagic:~#

Would appreciate some help again. Thank you!

[HROAdmin26]

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1        2004    16097098+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2            2005        3481    11864002+  83  Linux <== Per directions, specify filesystem type to mount this
/dev/sda3            3482      269354  2135619645+   5  Extended <== Extended partition - these don't get mounted
/dev/sda4            3482        3549      546210   82  Linux swap / Solaris <== Swap space. Unless you want to use it for swap, there is no reason to mount it

[nujinini]

/dev/sda2 2005 3481 11864002+ 83 Linux <== Per directions, specify filesystem type to mount this

Thank you!

May I please ask how to specify filesystem.

I tried

#mount -t /dev/sda2 /media/sda2 and
mount ext4 /dev/sda2 media/sda2

but both doesn't work

root@PartedMagic:~# mount ext3 /dev/sda2 /media/sda2
Usage: mount -V                 : print version
       mount -h                 : print this help
       mount                    : list mounted filesystems
       mount -l                 : idem, including volume labels
So far the informational part. Next the mounting.
The command is `mount [-t fstype] something somewhere'.
Details found in /etc/fstab may be omitted.
       mount -a [-t|-O] ...     : mount all stuff from /etc/fstab
       mount device             : mount device at the known place
       mount directory          : mount known device here
       mount -t type dev dir    : ordinary mount command
Note that one does not really mount a device, one mounts
a filesystem (of the given type) found on the device.
One can also mount an already visible directory tree elsewhere:
       mount --bind olddir newdir
or move a subtree:
       mount --move olddir newdir
One can change the type of mount containing the directory dir:
       mount --make-shared dir
       mount --make-slave dir
       mount --make-private dir
       mount --make-unbindable dir
One can change the type of all the mounts in a mount subtree
containing the directory dir:
       mount --make-rshared dir
       mount --make-rslave dir
       mount --make-rprivate dir
       mount --make-runbindable dir
A device can be given by name, say /dev/hda1 or /dev/cdrom,
or by label, using  -L label  or by uuid, using  -U uuid .
Other options: [-nfFrsvw] [-o options] [-p passwdfd].
For many more details, say  man 8 mount .
root@PartedMagic:~#

root@PartedMagic:~# mount -t /dev/sda2 /media/sda2
Usage: mount -V                 : print version
       mount -h                 : print this help
       mount                    : list mounted filesystems
       mount -l                 : idem, including volume labels
So far the informational part. Next the mounting.
The command is `mount [-t fstype] something somewhere'.
Details found in /etc/fstab may be omitted.
       mount -a [-t|-O] ...     : mount all stuff from /etc/fstab
       mount device             : mount device at the known place
       mount directory          : mount known device here
       mount -t type dev dir    : ordinary mount command
Note that one does not really mount a device, one mounts
a filesystem (of the given type) found on the device.
One can also mount an already visible directory tree elsewhere:
       mount --bind olddir newdir
or move a subtree:
       mount --move olddir newdir
One can change the type of mount containing the directory dir:
       mount --make-shared dir
       mount --make-slave dir
       mount --make-private dir
       mount --make-unbindable dir
One can change the type of all the mounts in a mount subtree
containing the directory dir:
       mount --make-rshared dir
       mount --make-rslave dir
       mount --make-rprivate dir
       mount --make-runbindable dir
A device can be given by name, say /dev/hda1 or /dev/cdrom,
or by label, using  -L label  or by uuid, using  -U uuid .
Other options: [-nfFrsvw] [-o options] [-p passwdfd].
For many more details, say  man 8 mount .
root@PartedMagic:~#

[HROAdmin26]

A)

man mount

Google: linux mount command examples

B) Does the kernel you're booted into have ext4 filesystem support?

** When you type in a command and it spits out the command's usage/help listing, it means your syntax is wrong.

[nujinini]

root@PartedMagic:~# mount -t ext3 /dev/sda2 media/sda2
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda2,
       missing codepage or helper program, or other error
       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail  or so

root@PartedMagic:~# mount -t ext4 /dev/sda2 media/sda2
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda2,
       missing codepage or helper program, or other error
       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail  or so

root@PartedMagic:~#

B) Does the kernel you're booted into have ext4 filesystem support?

By the way, I am using now a Live CD of Parted Magic. So i'm not sure if it supports ext4? Its the first time I encountered this situation

** When you type in a command and it spits out the command's usage/help listing, it means your syntax is wrong.

Thanks!

EDIT: By the way, I also tried to boot from XP CD but my system does not read it. Grub error.

[nujinini]

Hi!

Kids are coming in a few hours and they would like the PC back or else they might ask to borrow my laptop.

And so I did what any generous father would do. I just reinstalled everything including windows and voila. They can use it as soon as they arrive.

Thanks