Re: Partition table still leaves me confused.

[Mark Knecht <markknecht attbi com>]

Hi,
   I'll make some educated guesses based on what I see. We'll just have
to puzzle through it together. You're actually very close to being able
to boot both, but you need to do a few things I think.

   I'm not sure it's wise for me to try and give you every answer quite
yet. You need to get a few files and make a few modifications before
this is going to work correctly.

   DO NOT GET DISCOURAGED!! You ae very close. There is NO need to erase
ANYTHING to make this work, and in fat, you'll learn a lot by just going
through the steps.

   Read below and fire back answers and questions... :-)))

Mark

On Sat, 2003-05-31 at 08:07, Albert DE WINT wrote:
> Hi Mark,
> 
> Thanks for the effort of sending those files and tables.
> Unfortunately, I haven't been able to sort it out.
> 
> First, I tried to mount that Mandrake partition, here's what I got:
> 
> [root] # mount -t ext2 /dev/hda6 /mnt Mandrake
> 
> 	 mount: /dev/hda6 already mounted or /mnt/Mandrake busy
> 	 mount: according to mtab, /dev/hda6 is mounted on /

OK, here's I'm not totally clear which OS you are in. Are you in Redhat?
(I think so.) What's currently in your /etc/fstab File? I'll bet you
mounted /dev/hda6 on /mnt/Mandrake using an 'auto' parameter which
mounted it upon booting. I believe I suggest this yesterday.

Send a copy of /etc/fstab as it currently is.


> 
> My partion table still puzzles me:
> 
>    Disk /dev/hda: 120.0 GB, 120000000000 bytes	
>    255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14589 cylinders	
>    Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
> 
>    Device	  boot Start   End    Blocks   Id  System
>   /dev/hda1       9151  4589  43688767+   f  Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
>   /dev/hda2          1  3616  29045488+  17  Hidden HPFS/NTFS
>   /dev/hda3   *   3745  9150  43423695   83  Linux
>   /dev/hda4       3617  3744   1028160   82  Linux swap
>   /dev/hda5       9151  9163    104391   83  Linux
>   /dev/hda6       9164 14459  42540088+  83  Linux
>   /dev/hda7      14460 14589   1044193+  82  Linux swap
> 
> Apparantly, there's 3 Linux partitions + 2 swap. 
> I wonder why there's 3.  

OK, here's my cut on that. When we install Linux the installers for each
distribution are a little different, but essentially they always give
you an option of placing /boot inside of the / (root) partition, or
placing it in it's own partition. I believe that in one case you gave
/boot it's own partition, and in the other case you did not.

Here's my guess. I could have Redhat and Mandrake backwards, but
hopefully you'll get the idea:

/dev/hda3 	REDHAT	/ (root) and /boot
/dev/hda4	REDHAT	swap

/dev/hda5	MANDRAKE /boot in its own partition
/dev/hda6	MANDRAKE / (root) without /boot
/dev/hda7	MANDRAKE swap


> 
> /dev/hda5, is very small, but it's not SWAP?

No, it's the Mandrake boot. You can mount it, again using something like

mkdir /mnt/MD_boot
mount -t ext3 /dev/hda5 /mnt/MD_boot

ls /mnt/MD_boot

You'll then see the Mandrake kernel image sitting there.


> Could this be the partition that's supposed to boot Mandrake?
> Can I make it bootable?

OK, this may be a bit confusing at first, so bear with me.

You don't need to make a partition 'bootable' to boot Linux. The only
'bootable' partition in your case will be the partition that your BIOS
jumps to at boot time which holds grub. It's grub that 'boots' in the
older PC nomenclature.

After grub is up and running, 'booting' a Linux partition does not
require that it's a 'bootable' partition. All that is required is that
grub can find it and start executing it. 

All grub requires is to understand what partitions you want to tranfer
control to for different OS's. In your case, for REDHAT, you will
transfer control to the kernel image on /dev/hda3 in the /boot
directory.

For Mandrake you will transfer control to /dev/hda5, The only directory
on that partition will be the Mandrake /boot partition with the Mandrake
kernel image.

I want to stop here and hear your questions BEFORE I eaxplain the next
steps. In the next steps we will mount and edit your grub.conf file, but
to do that you'll need to send back:

1) Redhat grub.conf file
2) Mandrake /boot contents (I.e. - the name of the kernel)
3) Redhat /etc/fstab
4) Mandrake /etc/fstab


> 
> Besides, I also wonder about the meaning of the '+' near the block's
> sizes.  It's probably of no importance.

Don't bother with that for now. It's not causing problems as far as I
know.

> 
> Maybe I'd better get rid of anything that's not RED HAT.
> Suppose I delete hda1, hda2, hda4, hda6, and hda7, 
> would RED HAT still boot?

Yes, because it's the only 'bootable' partition you have anyway, and it
holds Redhat grub, which is what is really booting. (As per description
above.)

> 
> Anything else I should take care of? Like disabling SWAP?
> I have 512 MB on board; 
> 'top' says I don't use swap, so I don't need it?

Leave it along until we get both distributions booting. We'll then take
care of swap.

> 
> That's a lot of questions for one message.
> I apologize; feel free to tell me if it's too much.
> I don't want to steal your time.
> 
> Again, thank you for your kind assistance.
> 
> Albert