partition problem

[evan89]

I had Windows 98 and SUSE Linux 9.0 on one hard drive using 3 partitions. My setup was this HD0,1 was windows; HD0,2 was the swap file, and HD0,3 was the Linux partition. I reinstalled windows 98 and overwrote the MBR. Well then I got a new computer and and put the old drive in it. So now it goes like this: HD0 is the new drive; HD0,1 is Windows XP; HD0,2 is for personal files for one user; HD0,3 is for personal files for another user; HD1 is the old drive; HD1,1 is the Windows partition which I formatted to NTFS for more personal files; HD1,2 is a swap file for Linux 9.0; HD1,3 I have no clue what it is; HD1,4 is SUSE Linux 9.0; HD1,5 is a swap file for Linux 10.0; and HD1,6 is for SUSE Linux 10.0. SinceI overwrote the MBR I have not been able to boot Linux 9.0. I do not have the 9.0 CD's anymore. I then bought SUSE linux 10.0 though I like 9.0 better. 9.0 had much better games. The partition won't mount when I boot it. It thinks that its supposed to boot into the hd1,3 partition even though I changed its settings in SUSE 10.0 to boot into the HD1,4 partition. Trying to update some of the 9.0 packages to 10.0, SUSE told me to go to this website because of the partition problems; <http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/2003/03/fhassel_not_possible.html>. It does not exist. Would updating some of the packages ruin the games on 9.0? Is there a way to change the partition problems? I can copy partitions. Would copying the Linux partition to HD0,3 fix the problem?

Oh yeah: can you run games from one Linux installation in another. I want to play beneath a steel sky from 9.0. I can run 10.0 and can view files from 9.0 in the media thingmanginy.

[Cabhan]

Um...okay, I had some trouble following you. Allow me to understand:

hda1 is Windows XP
hda2 is personal files for user 1
hda3 is personal files for user 2

hdb1 is NTFS for personal files
hdb2 is Linux swap
hdb3 is unknown
hdb4 is is SuSE 9.0
hdb5 is Linux swap
hdb6 is SuSE 10.0


When you boot your computer, what happens? Does it give you the Windows bootloader? Does it display GRUB but into the wrong stuff? What precisely?

Also, can you get into Linux? If so, can you post the /boot/grub/menu.lst file?

[evan89]

yeah, your correct about the partitions
hda1 through hdb1 are all NTFS
I can get into Linux 10.0 only
I've tried changing the boot menu in YaST control center but have had no luck. I changed the initrd and kernel location to hdb6/boot/ where they are both located and the root disk to hdb6 and saved it but when I boot 9.0 it says it is not mountable and makes me choose something else from the Grub menu. It also does not allow me to update 9.0 to 10.0 because it believes the partition is in hda3 and not hdb4. It told me to go to the website that dows not exist.

I'll see if i can post the menu.lst

[Cabhan]

Also, what happens when you boot up your computer?

[evan89]

It used to say: This partition is not mountable
Then I changed Grub to boot from hd1,3 and also changed the initrd and kernel location to hd1,3. It then booted Linux but now I have this error
Kernel panic:VFS:Unable to mount root fs on 3:44
How do I fix that?

[Cabhan]

The most useful help that I could find was on a Brazilian forum, and I dun speak Portugese, but...

Near as I can figure out, there is a problem with the parameters in your grub configuration.

Can you please post the /boot/grub/menu.lst file? This would help a lot.

[evan89]

It was kinda hard for me to post my menu.lst file because a friend of mine had my flash drive and I couldn't get it back until today. I looked in the file though and I noticed that it didn't have an initrd location thingy. I fixed it and it booted but it never got into the GUI. I logged in and it gave me the command prompt. I type startx but it gave me two errors saying that the disk was read-only. How do I get it to not be read only?

[Cabhan]

My guess is that you're either mounting something read-only, or you're somehow booting read-only.

For the first, I need to see the /etc/fstab file. For the latter, I need to see the menu.lst file .

[evan89]

I sorry.
I installed a new video card and now suse 10 won't start x windows. I'm just going to do a clean install. I have the files by tomorrow sometime.

[jaboua]

1) the unknown partition (hdb3) is probably an extended partition, which hdb5 and hdb6 is on, as a standard partition layout won't allow more than 4 primary partitions.

2) This assume the suse9.0 partition is not mounted and that you are inside of suse10.0 or whatever OS GRUB is installed from. To get the right GRUB entry, you should get the entry 9.0 uses itself:

mkdir /mnt/SuSE9
mount /dev/hdb4 /mnt/SuSE9

If SuSE 9.0 used lilo, use the first code field, if GRUB, use the second:

cat /mnt/SuSE9/etc/lilo.conf

cat /mnt/SuSE9/boot/grub/menu.lst

Look for the SuSE boot entry. Copy that entry and start editing /boot/grub/menu.lst as root. Paste the SuSE9.0 entry at the end of the file.

For the SuSE9.0 entry, change "root=/dev/hda4" to "root=/dev/hdb4" in the kernel line and change the line "root (hd0,3)" to "root (hd1,3)"

Then edit /mnt/SuSE9/etc/fstab to your new partition layout, for example the swap partition is on another device now. Save it, umount /mnt/SuSE9 and reboot, it should work.