Re: Partition table still leaves me confused.

[Albert DE WINT <adwint pandora be>]

Op za 31-05-2003, om 18:50 schreef Mark Knecht:
> 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 exclusively use RED HAT.
A few days ago I lost XP, (so what)

> (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.

[root DIMENSION etc]# cat fstab
LABEL=/      /                ext3    defaults        1 1
LABEL=/boot  /boot            ext3    defaults        1 2
none         /dev/pts         devpts  gid=5,mode=620  0 0
none         /proc            proc    defaults        0 0
none         /dev/shm         tmpfs   defaults        0 0
/dev/hda4    swap             swap    defaults        0 0
/dev/hda7    swap             swap    defaults        0 0
/dev/cdrom   /mnt/cdrom       udf,iso9660 noauto,owner,kudzu,ro 0 0
/dev/cdrom1  /mnt/cdrom1      udf,iso9660 noauto,owner,kudzu,ro 0 0
/dev/fd0     /mnt/floppy      auto   noauto,owner,kudzu 0 0

(I sqeezed the lines, so they would fit between the margins)

> > 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.

I'll tell you the complete history, for clarity's sake.

Before I had mandre Mandrake, I had two partitions only: one for DOS,
one for NTFS (taking all the disk's space: 120GB)

So I schrinked the NTFS and added one EXT2 partition for Mandrake and
one swap partition. (using PartitionMagic)

Then I installed Mandrake.  (Nasty experience, lots of trouble; had to
start over a couple of times)

So when I was about to install REDHAT, 4 primary partitions had been
taken.(1 DOS, 1 NTFS, 1 EXT2, 1SWAP)

I decided to remove the first DOS partition to make room for REDHAT. 
(it contained DELL utilities, I guess)

Then, I created one brand new EXT3 part, with PartitionMagic, for
REDHAD.  
I hoped the first swap would be recognised by REDHAT, so it would be
happy with that, but afterwards I noticed REDHAT had neglected that
swap, it had made a second SWAP for itself.

> 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)

If I'm correct, it should be 2.4.19-16 (I found that in my notes on good
old paper)
 
> 3) Redhat /etc/fsta

> 4) Mandrake /etc/fstab

I'm afraid that's beyond my reach.

> > 
> > 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
> 
> 
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