Adding one partion prevents booting

**ariadacapo** · 12-03-2005

Hello all,

I was out of space on my linux partitions and I decided to resize the remaining Windows partition from 5Gig down to 3,5Gig. The resizing went fine (with a partition manipulation program coming with Mandriva).

In the space that was left I created a new partition, which, not really understanding what I was doing, I created as /test .
Creating the partition went fine.

I then tried to format the partition and it failed. The program told me it renamed all following partitions to allow for the new one, so "hda5" became "hda6" etc.
The program told me to change the boot system (I just clicked "ok" since I couldn't do otherwise), then proposed me to reboot and...

Now linux cannot boot. There is a kernel panic because the partition hda5 isn't found.

I suspect very much that deleting the new partition would solve the problem.

I can still boot Windows but cannot find anything to tell the boot loader to look for linux in another partition. There is no point at which I can reach a command line.

So my questions are as follows:

1. Can I repair this from Windows ?

2. If not, must I get a live CD ? (I haven't any and am new to linux so it might take time).

3. Is there a set of commands that could give me the layout of my hard drive and delete/rename partitions ?

Thank you very much in advance for your answers !

Cheers,

Olivier.

**anomie** · 12-03-2005

1. Can I repair this from Windows ?

Nope.

2. If not, must I get a live CD ? (I haven't any and am new to linux so it might take time).

Unless Mandriva has some repair facility included in the install cd, or unless you can somehow use the install cd to boot to the Mandriva installation (both are true for SuSE), then the easiest thing would probably for you to boot with a live cd. I suggest knoppix.

3. Is there a set of commands that could give me the layout of my hard drive and delete/rename partitions ?

The

Code:

fdisk -l

command will give you a list of partitions.

Assuming Mandriva has a menu.lst file (or at least has a symlink called menu.lst), you could also post it here.

Code:

cat /boot/grub/menu.lst

Then someone can help fix your problem without deleting any partition. If you insist on deleting the partion, then have a look at qtparted after booting with your knoppix live cd.

**Gnux** · 12-05-2005

Originally Posted by ariadacapo

Hello all,
I suspect very much that deleting the new partition would solve the problem.
Olivier.

Lo
Not the partition only the bad line u write in ur fstab...
So to add a new partition u need to create it (

) then to know how linux see it (hdaX) and be sure of that : make a fdisk -l . Then edit ur fstab the line must be something like that:

Code:

/dev/hdc6       /divx           ext3    defaults        0       2

That is a partition I had to stock some data...
PS:u let mandriva create the filesystem on it for u or u use something l'ke mk2fs?

**ariadacapo** · 12-05-2005

Thanks !
Well, I managed to boot with the distro CD, which allows to run diskdrake (before interrupting the installation).

Now I deleted the partition (against your advice

) and here is what my hard drive looks like :

Code:

hda1    /mnt/windows    NTFS              3,1Gb
empty                                     1,6Gb
hda5                    Journalised FS    5,8Gb
hda6                    swap              1Gb
hda7                    Journalised FS    25Gb &#40;my files&#41;

Since upon deleting the extra partition the names of the others were changed back to original, I thought I was out of trouble... Linux now does start to boot, but unfortunately very quickly this is what I get:

Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/hda6. Failed to check filesystem.

I'm asked whether I want to repair, but it fails and I'm left with just rebooting.

I now realise (that's how you learn I suppose) that I should have saved the partition table before doing anything. Diskdrake can attempt to restore it automatically but since all my files are on hda7 I don't want this to be touched..
Do you think that partition hda6 is damaged ? With diskdrake I don't get an option to set a mounting point for it.

Can you make sense out of this strange super-block magic number thing ?

Thanks for your advice !
Big cheers,

Olivier.

**Gnux** · 12-05-2005

Hello
Could u paste up ur fstab plz? For ur swap u must have sth like that:

Code:

/dev/hda2      none           swap      sw

U should recreate a new partition with the 1,6 Go left empty on ur hd it's not difficult.

**ariadacapo** · 12-06-2005

Ok. Whew... I managed to do an fdisk -l and read the fstab file. Not easy for a beginner.

Here is what I obain:

Code:

fdisk -l

:

Code:

device boot start end  blocks Id system
/dev/hda1 *  1    417  xxxxxx 7  HPFS/NTFS

/dev/hda2    638  4864 xxxxxx 5  Extended
/dev/hda5    638  1401 xxxxxx 83 Linux
/dev/hda6    1402 1541 xxxxxx 82 Linux swap
/dev/hda7    1542 4864 xxxxxx 83 Linux

Code:

less /etc/fstab

:

Code:

/dev/hda6  /            ext3  noatime  1  1
/dev/hda8  /home        ext3  noatime  1  2
/dev/hdc   /mnt/cdrom   iso9669  user....  0  0
/dev/hda1  /mnt/windows ntfs  umask=0, nls=iso8899-15,ro  0  0
none       /proc        proc  defaults  0  0
/dev/hda7  swap         swap  defaults  0  0

I'm a little confused by the differences (I guess so is my computer). Any idea what I should best do ?
Sorry if I'm long to answer... doing the best I can.

Thanks again !

Olivier.

**anomie** · 12-06-2005

Back up your fstab:

Code:

cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.backup

So that you always have a version to go back to (even if it is broken at the moment).

If I had to take a wild guess, the following changes to /etc/fstab should fix the problem:

Code:

/dev/hda5  /            ext3  noatime  1  1
/dev/hda7  /home        ext3  noatime  1  2
/dev/hdc   /mnt/cdrom   iso9669  user....  0  0
/dev/hda1  /mnt/windows ntfs  umask=0, nls=iso8899-15,ro  0  0
none       /proc        proc  defaults  0  0
/dev/hda6  swap         swap  defaults  0  0

**ariadacapo** · 12-07-2005

I am starting to understand what is happening here...

Unfortunately I cannot edit the fstab file because it's a "read-only filesystem". Both as root and as my usual username, I could only access the file but not copy or save it.

Do you have any suggestion to circumvent this ? Would taking the hard drive out of the computer and mounting it as a usb external drive on another (linux) computer help ?

Olivier.

**ariadacapo** · 12-09-2005

I have tried again and again different ways...

I cannot have access to my personal files partition (/home/myusername which should be hda7) even under root.
And I bang into this

read-only filesystem

thing everytime I try to do something with the fstab file...

Code:

chmod 777 /etc/fstab

doesn't work, of course.

Please help... despair slowly sinks in and I need to use my computer more and more...

Thanks,

Olivier.

**ariadacapo** · 12-10-2005

Sorry to keep answering myself but I solved the problem, so it's the last time

Since it didn't work with this "maintenance" konsole (which appeared half-way through booting after the errors), I tried doing it from the mandriva linux installation CD

Here's how it works, in case someone meets the same problem:

Boot from cd, launch command

Code:

rescue

(with options such as noacip if necessary). (this rescue thing was not obvious at first !)

Mount all your partitions in /mnt (it does it all for you from the cd menu)

Open a console, go and look for the fstab in /mnt/etc/fstab . You can now edit it

Code:

vi /mnt/etc/fstab

and repair your system. Anomie's "wild guess" for the fstab was the right one !

Anomie and Gnux, thank you. Your help and advice were much appreciated. Now not only do I have a computer that works, but I also learned quite a lot. I hope to be able to help someone one day like you did.
A big cheers !

Olivier.

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