[SOLVED] create new /home

**ToFue** · 03-24-2009

Hi guys!
Here's my situation: I had Ubuntu Studio x64 set with three partitions, swap, /home, and / (respectively) on one IDE HD, with win7b and xp on separate sata hd. Windows bugged out and corrupted my boot sectors, and upon running fixmbr it took hidden liberties to overwrite my /home partition with xp bootloader, and I ended up reformatting the /home partition to ext3.

After unplugging the windows disk, I successfully reinstalled grub and am left without a working /home. I have a LOT of stuff [drivers, X11, other packages, etc..] installed and configured in my root system, and need to recreate a working /home. I assume I'll need to reinstall all my packages for the new /home/[user], but don't want to lose the system settings for them.. Can anyone help me?

Many thanks in advance!

**devils casper** · 03-24-2009

You don't have to re-install any package but user settings are gone now. User settings are stored in /home/user folder only.

***elija*** · 03-24-2009

Can you post the output of "fdisk -l" that's a small L and you don't need the quotes

**ToFue** · 03-24-2009

Originally Posted by elija

Can you post the output of "fdisk -l" that's a small L and you don't need the quotes

here's the output

Code:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 122.9 GB, 122942324736 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14946 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0a6885bc

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1        1945    15623181    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda2            1946        9349    59472630   83  Linux
/dev/sda3   *        9350       14946    44957902+  83  Linux
/dev/sda5               1        1945    15623149+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$

my Ubuntu install is the only disk I have plugged in right now (I'll tackle xp later)
/home should be on /dev/sda2, but is now blank

It's good to know I won't have to reinstall any packages and figured the usr setting are gone - I'm sure I'll have to reconfig the uid for the would-be duplicate uname/pwd once I get /home redone.

Will the usr-specific config fie/folder structure reconstitute as I use existing packages? (of course after /home gets reconstituted)

**jmadero** · 03-24-2009

If by "reconstitute" you mean rebuild identically to the way you had it before...no they won't. They'll just put default folders in your /home that have the config stuff (defaults) not the previously set ones.

Usually configuring is okay, but other stuff could have been lost. If you are just looking at reconfiguring I'd suggest just doing it from scratch and then backing up your home folder after for future use.

If instead you are talking about other things. Such as documents, etc...(when I tore up my home folder a month or two ago I had my thunderbird set up, 1.1 gigs of email....) I'd recommend spending a bit more time trying to find a solution. One thing to note, if this is the case, STOP WRITING TO THE DISK, as the more you write, the less likely it is that you'll save anything -- it's already pretty unlikely but, the more you write the more chance it'll overwrite the "deleted" stuff

**ToFue** · 03-24-2009

can I mount /dev/sda3 and copy over /home from the livedvd, delete the "Ubuntu" user, and create new user as my old username and change the UID in permissions' & groups' config? How do I get the sys to see the new /home as a partition?

I'm sorry, I meant to say can I mount /dev/sda2 and copy over /home...

**Jonathan183** · 03-24-2009

Does the system boot in recovery mode? if it does then use that to create another account with admin access rights.

If you can't get in using recovery mode then I'd be tempted to try boot from the live CD, chroot into your existing install and add a user. Give you new user admin rights then restart the system from the hard drive, login as the new user and use that account to delete and recreate the original account using GUI tools.

... after you have backed up user data to a pen drive/other disk

**ToFue** · 03-25-2009

Originally Posted by Jonathan183

Does the system boot in recovery mode? if it does then use that to create another account with admin access rights.

If you can't get in using recovery mode then I'd be tempted to try boot from the live CD, chroot into your existing install and add a user. Give you new user admin rights then restart the system from the hard drive, login as the new user and use that account to delete and recreate the original account using GUI tools.

... after you have backed up user data to a pen drive/other disk

That's sorta what I did- here's my steps (some steps borrowed from the ubuntu 'how to reinstall grub' howto (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Re...llingWindows):

1) I booted from liveCD & opened terminal

in terminal,

Code:

sudo su

fdisk -l

which gave me..

Code:

Disk /dev/sda: 122.9 GB, 122942324736 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14946 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0a6885bc

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1        1945    15623181    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda2            1946        9349    59472630   83  Linux
/dev/sda3   *        9350       14946    44957902+  83  Linux
/dev/sda5               1        1945    15623149+  82  Linux swap / Solaris

2. I created a mount point for root, using /dev/sda3 which had my system files & existing /root directory on it..

Code:

mkdir /mnt/root

mount -t ext3 /dev/sda3 /mnt/root

3. then I made a mount point for proc so I can open dialog between utilities and the kernel for interfacing w/ the new filesystem (not sure that this was required)

Code:

mount -t proc none /mnt/root/proc

4. then I had to bind the devices(/dev) from the hard drive with a working mount point

Code:

mount -o bind /dev /mnt/root/dev

5. at this point I created a new user from the liveCD's menu system>administration>users&groups with identical username & pwd from my old account (i didn't put my 'real name' like i did on the first account, though) and then moved the account to the space that would be /home

Code:

mv /home/tofue /media/disk

where 'tofue' is the new username and 'disk' is what the liveCD recognized as the partition when mounted through nautilus.

6. I unmounted /media/disk and after reading a little more from my Red Hat Linux Bible, I found the following steps to set up a new file system on the partition that would become /home (/dev/sda2)

Code:

mkfs -t ext3 /dev/sda2

for whatever reason I rebooted.

during boot, I received errors telling me that there were broken links, and the boot process defaulted me to a terminal. I could have probably finished these next steps without the reboot, but oh well. now I was working directly from my install.

I didn't have to change /etc/fstab at all, or alter /etc/passwd as (I assume) the uuid of the partition and the uid of the account defaulted to be the same as the old ones. I would have probably had to alter them if I had more than one account, and this one was down the list, or other weird stuff

7. so all I really had to do next was to mount the new /home drive and be done

Code:

mount -t ext3 /dev/sda2 /home

(I think the first time I typed that, it gave me an error of some sort while under the liveCD, so I ended up creating /home2 as the mount-point >doh!<)

###. so I found a command in the good book that lets me see what filesystems are mounted to what devices, bound to what, and all..

Code:

df -h

which gave me..

Code:

root@ectotron:~$ df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3              43G  6.2G   34G  16% /
tmpfs                 4.0G     0  4.0G   0% /lib/init/rw
varrun                4.0G  224K  4.0G   1% /var/run
varlock               4.0G     0  4.0G   0% /var/lock
udev                  4.0G  3.4M  3.9G   1% /dev
tmpfs                 4.0G  628K  4.0G   1% /dev/shm
lrm                   4.0G  2.4M  3.9G   1% /lib/modules/2.6.27-11-generic/volatile
/dev/sda2              57G  181M   54G   1% /home
/dev/scd0             695M  695M     0 100% /media/cdrom0

so again, I rebooted. This time it was into my old environment- barren, but there (like comeing home after Katrina hit!)

and, Eureka, I was done.. though I still haven't cold-booted again to be certain, but I'm sure it's all cured! hehe (watch me eat my words!)

Thanks guys for all the suggestions, and I hope this helps someone that finds themselves in a similar bind!

**ToFue** · 03-25-2009

Ack! I left out a step in the thread http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/ubu...-new-home.html - I actually had to alter /etc/fstab to match the new UUID to /dev/sda2 which was done by

Code:

vol_id -u /dev/sda2

and compare replace the /etc/fstab value using

Code:

vim -n /etc/fstab

could a moderator merge the threads, please

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[SOLVED] create new /home

Eurika! I made success!

create new /home

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