[Novalug] Triple Boot Woes

Beartooth karhunhammas at Lserv.com
Sat Jan 12 15:15:45 EST 2008


 	I got my testbed machine so snarled that I started over. 
It was partitioned for three OSs, and I tried to use the extant 
partitions; that mostly worked -- I guess. At least, each install 
appeared to complete normally ...

 	On boot, I now get a grub menu with several options for 
each OS; but choosing a CentOS one just gets me to the standard 
grub error that says it can't, and to hit any key; choosing 
Fedora gets a kernel panic. Ubuntu 7.10 (not 6.06 this time) does 
boot.

 	Here are some things I see :

root at SblzUb:/boot/grub# df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda5              12G  2.7G  7.8G  26% /
varrun                498M   88K  498M   1% /var/run
varlock               498M     0  498M   0% /var/lock
udev                  498M   76K  498M   1% /dev
devshm                498M     0  498M   0% /dev/shm
lrm                   498M   34M  464M   7% 
/lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/volatile
/dev/hda1              99M   29M   65M  31% /media/hda1
/dev/hda2              14G  2.8G   11G  22% /media/hda2
/dev/hda3              12G  3.5G  7.8G  31% /media/hda3
/dev/hda1              99M   29M   65M  31% /TEST
root at SblzUb:/boot/grub#

 	That hda1 is in there twice because I had just done :

root at SblzUb:/boot/grub# mount -t ext3 /dev/hda1 /TEST
root at SblzUb:/boot/grub# ls /TEST
config-2.6.18-53.1.4.el5           symvers-2.6.18-53.1.4.el5.gz
config-2.6.18-53.1.4.el5xen 
symvers-2.6.18-53.1.4.el5xen.gz
config-2.6.18-53.el5               symvers-2.6.18-53.el5.gz
grub                               System.map-2.6.18-53.1.4.el5
initrd-2.6.18-53.1.4.el5.img 
System.map-2.6.18-53.1.4.el5xen
initrd-2.6.18-53.1.4.el5kdump.img  System.map-2.6.18-53.el5
initrd-2.6.18-53.1.4.el5xen.img    vmlinuz-2.6.18-53.1.4.el5
initrd-2.6.18-53.el5.img           vmlinuz-2.6.18-53.1.4.el5xen
initrd-2.6.18-53.el5kdump.img      vmlinuz-2.6.18-53.el5
lost+found                         xen.gz-2.6.18-53.1.4.el5
message                            xen-syms-2.6.18-53.1.4.el5
root at SblzUb:/boot/grub#

 	I *think* that's telling me /dev/hda1 is CentOS -- though 
it seems mighty small for it. (CentOS was supposed to have 14 or 
15 GB.)

 	/dev/hda2 may be Ubuntu

root at SblzUb:/boot/grub# umount /TEST
root at SblzUb:/boot/grub# mount -t ext3 /dev/hda2 /TEST
root at SblzUb:/boot/grub# ls /TEST
bin   dev  home  lost+found  misc  opt   root  selinux  sys  usr
boot  etc  lib   media       mnt   proc  sbin  srv      tmp  var
root at SblzUb:/boot/grub#

 	BUT there's a joker in that deck :

root at SblzUb:/boot/grub# umount /TEST
root at SblzUb:/boot/grub# mount -t ext3 /dev/hda3 /TEST
root at SblzUb:/boot/grub# ls /TEST
bin   dev  home  lost+found  mnt  proc  sbin     srv  tmp  var
boot  etc  lib   media       opt  root  selinux  sys  usr
root at SblzUb:/boot/grub#

 	hda4 should be the extended partition -- and won't mount.

root at SblzUb:/boot/grub# mount -t ext3 /dev/hda5 /TEST
root at SblzUb:/boot/grub# ls /TEST
bin    dev   initrd      lost+found  opt   sbin  TEST  var
boot   etc   initrd.img  media       proc  srv   tmp   vmlinuz
cdrom  home  lib         mnt         root  sys   usr
root at SblzUb:/boot/grub#

root at SblzUb:/boot/grub# umount /TEST
root at SblzUb:/boot/grub# mount -t ext3 /dev/hda6 /TEST
mount: /dev/hda6 already mounted or /TEST busy
root at SblzUb:/boot/grub#

 	I also see this :

root at SblzUb:~# fdisk -l /dev/hda

Disk /dev/hda: 41.1 GB, 41110142976 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4998 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0000aa6a

    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1               1          13      104391   83  Linux
/dev/hda2              14        1837    14651280   83  Linux
/dev/hda3            1838        3417    12691350   83  Linux
/dev/hda4            3418        4998    12699382+   5  Extended
/dev/hda5   *        3418        4876    11719386   83  Linux
/dev/hda6            4930        4998      554211   82  Linux 
swap / Solaris

 	and this :

root at SblzUb:~# cat /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump> 
<pass>
proc            /proc           proc    defaults        0       0
# /dev/hda5
UUID=867c1a32-4e25-4ff9-a0b9-f3dc44c4d97b /               ext3 
defaults,errors=remount-ro 0       1
# /dev/hda1
UUID=85972921-d2d1-48b9-8192-0bd7545195ca /media/hda1     ext3 
defaults        0       2
# /dev/hda2
UUID=4edffadf-e433-4f0e-9ba4-f035f08bc000 /media/hda2     ext3 
defaults        0       2
# /dev/hda3
UUID=541a011d-750f-4bd3-9964-e44a4e33ac36 /media/hda3     ext3 
defaults        0       2
# /dev/hda6
UUID=0b5b3810-6542-4ad7-8cf8-0f0c9a478853 none            swap 
sw              0       0
/dev/hdc        /media/cdrom0   udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec 0 
0
/dev/fd0        /media/floppy0  auto    rw,user,noauto,exec 0 
0
root at SblzUb:~#

 	and this :

root at SblzUb:~# cat /etc/mtab
/dev/hda5 / ext3 rw,errors=remount-ro 0 0
proc /proc proc rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev 0 0
/sys /sys sysfs rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev 0 0
varrun /var/run tmpfs rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=0755 0 0
varlock /var/lock tmpfs rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=1777 0 0
udev /dev tmpfs rw,mode=0755 0 0
devshm /dev/shm tmpfs rw 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts rw,gid=5,mode=620 0 0
lrm /lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/volatile tmpfs rw 0 0
/dev/hda1 /media/hda1 ext3 rw 0 0
/dev/hda2 /media/hda2 ext3 rw 0 0
/dev/hda3 /media/hda3 ext3 rw 0 0
securityfs /sys/kernel/security securityfs rw 0 0
/dev/hda1 /TEST ext3 rw 0 0
root at SblzUb:~#

 	Finally, I can't get qtparted to show anything; but 
gparted does launch, and shows

/dev/hda1 as ext3 labelled /boot with 102 MB

/dev/hda2 as ext3 labelled / with 14 GB

/dev/hda3 as ext3 labelled /1 with 12 GB

/dev/hda4 as extended         with 12 GB

/dev/hda5 as ext3 labelled / with 11 GB

[then 416 MB of "unallocated" -- I messed something up with 
qtparted under Knoppix]

/dev/hda6  as linux-swap with 541 MB

 	At least two of the installers vomplained of that swap as 
being to little -- and wouldn't let me increase it ... I'd like 
to add that unallocated space to it, but don't see how. Gparted 
let me create it into a new linux-swap partition, but made it 
/dev/hda7; it didn't combine it with /dev/hda6. Is that OK??

-- 
Beartooth Staffwright, Neo-Redneck Double Retiree,
Not Quite Clueless Linux Power User, with precious 
(very precious) little idea where up is.







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