Partition Mangle

[_madman_]

So I had a partition table similar to : (fdisk -l):

  Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hdb1               1        6080    48837568+   c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hdb3            6081       27263     ?????     83  Linux
/dev/hdb6           10000       13889    31246393+  83  Linux
/dev/hdb7           13890       15105     9767488+  83  Linux
/dev/hdb8           15106       22400    58597056   83  Linux

... don' t quote me on the hdb3 line, as I'm guessing

I wanted to delete the /dev/hdb3 (primary) partition and insert a logical ext3 in it's place. Which I would 'cp -a' my /home folder to, because /dev/hda was 100% full. I did all that and copied my home folder over, which seemed to work.

The 'fdisk -l' table looks like this now:

Disk /dev/hdb: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000124f6

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hdb1               1        6080    48837568+   c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hdb3            6081       27263   170152447+   5  Extended
/dev/hdb5            6081        9999    31479336   83  Linux
/dev/hdb6           10000       13889    31246393+  83  Linux
/dev/hdb7           13890       15105     9767488+  83  Linux
/dev/hdb8           15106       22400    58597056   83  Linux
/dev/hdb9           22401       27263    39062016   83  Linux

.../dev/hdb9 is a backup I made of hdb5 with dd .

After reboot (i didn't reboot after making partition or formating), the system says:

mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hdb5,
       missing codepage or helper program, or other error
       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail  or so

and when I try to mount /dev/hdb3:

mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hdb3,
       missing codepage or helper program, or other error
       (aren't you trying to mount an extended partition,
       instead of some logical partition inside?)
       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail  or so

It also gives me something about running e2fsck -b 8193 device , which I tried, substituting -b 32768 . Nothing would recognize the partition. Finally I landed on the testdisk program, which found it!
TestDisk ouput:

Disk /dev/hdb - 250 GB / 232 GiB - CHS 30401 255 63
Current partition structure:
     Partition                  Start        End    Size in sectors

 1 P FAT32 LBA                0   1  1  6079 254 63   97675137
 3 E extended              6080   0  1 27262 254 63  340304895
No partition is bootable
No EXT2, JFS, Reiser, cramfs or XFS marker
 5 L Linux                 6080   1  1  9998 254 63   62958672
 5 L Linux                 6080   1  1  9998 254 63   62958672
   X extended              9999   0  1 13888 254 63   62492850
 6 L Linux                 9999   1  1 13888 254 63   62492787
   X extended             13889   0  1 15104 254 63   19535040
 7 L Linux                13889   1  1 15104 254 63   19534977
   X extended             15105   0  1 22399 254 63  117194175
 8 L Linux                15105   1  1 22399 254 63  117194112
   X extended             22400   0  1 27262 254 63   78124095
    Next
*=Primary bootable  P=Primary  L=Logical  E=Extended  D=Deleted

and the next screen:

Disk /dev/hdb - 250 GB / 232 GiB - CHS 30401 255 63
     Partition               Start        End    Size in sectors
* FAT32 LBA                0   1  1  6079 254 63   97675137
P Linux                 6080   0  1  9998 254 63   62958735 [/]
L Linux                 9999   1  1 13888 254 63   62492787             <----  that's the one I need!
L Linux                13889   1  1 15104 254 63   19534977
L Linux                15105   1  1 22399 254 63  117194112

I'm really having trouble making heads or tails of all this. I think I violated some rule by trying to insert a logical partition.

Like I said, it all actually worked before I rebooted.

[Hal343]

I have LVM on both drives.

Here is my internal sda and external sdb partition table


Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 2490 20000893+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 * 2491 2988 4000185 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 2989 3112 996030 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda4 3113 30401 219198892+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 3113 5602 20000893+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 5603 8092 20000893+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 8093 29529 172192671 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 29530 30401 7004308+ 83 Linux

Dev sda1 is bootable for AntiX Dev sda2 is bootable for Ubuntu 8.04. Dev sda8 is bootable for Mepis

Disk /dev/sdb: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x711b711b

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 2337 4946 20964825 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 4947 5077 1052257+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb3 1 2336 18755887+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb4 5078 14593 76437270 5 Extended
/dev/sdb5 5078 6382 10482381 83 Linux
/dev/sdb6 6383 7687 10482381 83 Linux
/dev/sdb7 7688 14593 55472413+ 83 Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

dev sdb1 is unbootable for SUSE data backup from old install, Dev sdb3 is bootable for Ubuntu 9.04

[Hal343]

Here is /boot/grub/message for sda

gfxmenu /boot/grub/message

title MEPIS at sda1, newest kernel
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda1 nomce quiet splash vga=791
initrd /boot/initrd.img
boot

title MEPIS at sda1, previous kernel (if any)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz.old root=/dev/sda1 nomce quiet splash vga=791
boot

title MEPIS at sda1, kernel 2.6.27-1-mepis-smp
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27-1-mepis-smp root=/dev/sda1 nomce quiet splash vga=791
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.27-1-mepis-smp
boot

title Ubuntu 8.04.2, kernel 2.6.24-24-generic
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-24-generic root=UUID=de57233b-b6d5-42bc-b61b-0c1584f6a131 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-24-generic

title MEPIS at sda8, newest kernel
root (hd0,7)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda8 nomce quiet splash vga=791
initrd /boot/initrd.img

title MEMTEST
kernel /boot/memtest86+.bin

[Hal343]

Here is /boot/grub/menu.lst from sdb

title Ubuntu 9.04, kernel 2.6.28-11-generic
uuid 788a4901-70db-4fd3-a08a-1e25c1a492b2
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-11-generic root=UUID=788a4901-70db-4fd3-a08a-1e25c1a492b2 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.28-11-generic
quiet

title Ubuntu 9.04, kernel 2.6.28-11-generic (recovery mode)
uuid 788a4901-70db-4fd3-a08a-1e25c1a492b2
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-11-generic root=UUID=788a4901-70db-4fd3-a08a-1e25c1a492b2 ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.28-11-generic

title Ubuntu 9.04, memtest86+
uuid 788a4901-70db-4fd3-a08a-1e25c1a492b2
kernel /boot/memtest86+.bin
quiet

### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST

EDIT~ not sure why I see option for sdb on boot, because there is no reference to it in /sda1/boot/grub/menu.lst

[_madman_]

Well, I guess inserting that logical partition bumped all the hdb numbers up one.

So I just mounted /dev/hdb6 and there was hdb5's files!

I don't know what happened to the Ubuntu partition (the original hdb5) I had in there, must have been overwritten or something. It didn't matter anyway.


As far as the person who hijacked my thread is concerned: I wouldn't suggest using LVM unless you really, really need it. I tried a long while back and it turned into more of a nightmare than my current situation.

If you run out (or want to expand) space on a partition, try to just create an entirely new (larger) partition and move the files & directories to it (with: cp -a). You can then mount that partition in place of the old directory. That's exactly what I was doing with my "/home" directory above. I just should have been more careful with the actual partitioning.

LVM, to me, is just a worst-case scenario. I only use it as a last resort.