installed FC 3 on another partition but can not mount that partition.
 

I have FC 4 running on my machine, its installed on sda5. i installed FC 3 on sda6 but I need to find the vmlinuz files so that I can boot into it. I did not install the boot loader because i already have fc4 working on my machine.

In the hardware browser I have teh following set up:
sda 1 5993 MB ext3
sda2 31189 Extended
sda5 996MB ext3
sda6 10001 ext3
20191 Free space.

When ever I try and go into sda6 by going system > Storage Media> Hard Disck sda6, I get:

Could not mount device.
The reported error was:
mount:wrong type, bad, option, bad superblock on /dev/sda6,

missing codepage or other error.

In some cases usefull info is found in syslog - try demesg |tail or so.

I tried the demesg bit but get no luck.

Can some one advice on how to look into sda6 so that I can set up grub to be able to boot into FC3.

At the moment grub is pointing at FC 4 as the default.

Many thanks for anyones help.

Hi MurX

Have you tried mounting from the command line?
Try:
$ mkdir /mnt/tmp
$ su -c "mount /dev/sda6"

and see if you can get at your files in /mnt/tmp/boot

Fogswimmer,

i tried that but i get the rely

wrong fs type, bad option bad super block on /dev/sda6 missing codepage or other error.

do:
moutn -t ext3 /dev/hda6 /mnt/tmp
vmlinuz is in the /boot directory.

Hi MurX,

in case shams' suggestion did not produce the desired result, can you please post the output of

$su -c "/sbin/fdisk -l"

f

Fogswimmer, sorry to take so long in getting back on this but I have not been able to do anything over xmas.

I tried the above and I get the message
mount: special device /dev/hda6 does not exist

Here is the output from $su -c "/sbin/fdisk -l"


Disk /dev/sda: 203.9 GB, 203928109056 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24792 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 764 6136798+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 765 4740 31937220 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda3 4741 24792 161067690 8e Linux LVM
/dev/sda5 765 891 1020096 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 892 2166 10241406 83 Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 2 16033+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb2 3 1277 10241437+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb3 1278 19457 146030850 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdb5 1278 2552 10241406 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb6 2553 7651 40957686 b W95 FAT32
/dev/sdb7 7652 8288 5116671 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb8 8289 16907 69232086 b W95 FAT32
/dev/sdb9 16908 19457 20482843+ b W95 FAT32

Disk /dev/sdc: 163.9 GB, 163928604672 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19929 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 * 1 2 16033+ 1 FAT12
/dev/sdc2 3 1276 10233405 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdc3 1277 19929 149830222+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdc5 1277 2551 10241406 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdc6 2552 3188 5116671 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdc7 3189 5100 15358108+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdc8 5101 17211 97281576 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdc9 17212 19929 21832303+ b W95 FAT32

sorry to bump this up but can anyone help on this.

I can not do anything on my system until I can sort this out.

many thanks.

Hi MurX,

I don't really know what to make of this. But as long as there aren't any more enlightened replies I'll just have a go...

To me it looks as though your sda6 partition is messed up somehow (superblock?, see the error message you posted) and thus cannot be mounted.

Can you try (as root)
$ file -Ls /dev/sda6

and post the output, please?

best,
f

Fogswimmer

here is the output.

[root@localhost ~]# file -Ls /dev/sda6
/dev/sda6: Linux rev 1.0 ext3 filesystem data (large files)

MurX,

thanks. At least the partition is recognized OK. Two more things before resorting to the search engine:

- Can you try
mount -t ext3 /dev/sda6 /mnt/tmp
please? (Explicit mount as suggested by shams, but with corrected spelling and device name)
not working?
- as root, check the file system on /dev/sda6:
/sbin/fsck /dev/sda6

If that doesn't help or unearth any obvious flaws I'll have to give up.

best,
f

MurX,

reconsidering your original problem, the grub lines you are looking for may just be:

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.9-1.667 ro root=/dev/hda3 rhgb quiet
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.9-1.667.img

At least that's the standard place and kernel (as found) on (my) FC3. Maybe that'll do as a workaround. You can also look inside partitions from the grub prompt; just use the help function at the same or look around the web.

All best,
f

Fogswimmer

This is what happend when I did the above.

[root@localhost]# mount -t ext3 /dev/sda6 /mnt/tmp
[root@localhost]# /sbin/fsck /dev/sda6
fsck 1.37 (21-Mar-2005)
e2fsck 1.37 (21-Mar-2005)
/dev/sda6 is mounted.

WARNING!!! Running e2fsck on a mounted filesystem may cause
SEVERE filesystem damage.

Do you really want to continue (y/n)? yes

/: recovering journal
/: clean, 144535/1281696 files, 859894/2560351 blocks
[root@localhost]#

F
I entered the following into my grub.conf file for FC3

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.9-1.667 ro root=/dev/hda3 rhgb quiet
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.9-1.667.img

I replaced root=/dev/hda3

with root=/dev/hda6

butI got the following on boot up:

booting linux kernal

ata3 failed to respond (30secs)
ata3 failed to respond (30secs)
mount: error 6 mount ext3
mount: error 2 mount none

switch root: mount failed:22
umount /initrd/dev failed: 2
kernel panic - not syscing attempted to kill init

My only opion is to wipe the disc (loosin FC4 and FC3) and reinstalling both OSs, but I would rather not do that for obvious reasons.

hope you can help.

Hi MurX,
I hope nothing was damaged by continuing despite the warning. The error message however tells you that dev/sda6 is mounted already! That's good.
This means that your first command was successful (and the second unneeded!)
You can access the files at /mnt/tmp then (this is the mountpoint you specified!). Look in /mnt/tmp/boot for the vmlinuz and initrd files and use these in your menu.lst

Hi MurX,

please do not wipe the disc just yet. Sorry for using /dev/hda3 in my post, it should have been /dev/sda6 of course (That's sda6 not hda6! - that's the name of your partition as I understand it.) Try that please, together with the vmlinuz and initrd names found by following the above suggestions. I assume you also added a first line like
root (hd0,5)
before the two lines quoted above. The number before the comma probably is a 0 (should be the same as in the line before your fc4 entry), after the comma a 5.