RE: Grub stage1 file error

["Ossama Khayaat" <ossamak nht com kw>]

Michael and Michael, thanks very much for your responses.
I'll try to use 'parted' to check the type of partition again.
The problem is that even when I created a GRUB boot disk, and used the
GRUB command line to manually boot the partition, it couldn't read it.
I try:
# root(hd0,6) (which is /dev/hda7)
and I get:
unrecognized partition (or similar)

One more question is, say that it is a FAT16 partition, and I want to
convert it to ext3 without formatting. How can I do this? Just curious
:)

Appreciating your help,
Ossama

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michal Jaegermann [mailto:michal harddata com]
> Subject: Re: Grub stage1 file error
> 
> On Sun, Oct 05, 2003 at 04:53:59PM +0200, Michael Schwendt wrote:
> > Apparently, you
> > created an ext3 file-system on a FAT16 partition. You need to
correct
> > that and use fdisk to set the partiton to type 83 (fdisk, enter 't',
> > enter partition number, enter 83).
> 
> Most of the time these partition types are not really significant
> and you can assign them in a random manner. :-)  There are some
> exceptions and grub seems to be one of these.  It searches, during
> an installation and while booting, for some files and a file system
> type to search is apparently guessed from a partition type.  A wrong
> guess and no go.
> 
> Checking sources would likely confirm that but it is hard to imagine
> for a boot loader to do an extensive file system recognition.  lilo
> is using absolute disk postions, so no searching at boot time, but
> it has to be carefuly informed about any changes.
> 
>   Michal