I have 3 Ubuntu installations & a PCLINUXOS, plus Windows XP installed on one hard disk. I still can boot to each one of them and can mount each one using Ubuntu.
The problem "may" have occurred when I reduced the size of some linux partitions using gparted. I still have plenty of space in each of those partitions.
When I started
gparted all of the HD was unallocated. I did that from each ubuntu installation and the PCLINUX installation, plus LIVECDs. All indicated the space was unallocated.
When I did an fdisk -l from a Puppy Linux LiveCD I got a normal start and ends of each partition.
When I tried it from Ubuntu installation or live cd, I received the following types of responses:
Code:
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda5
Disk /dev/sda5: 28.5 GB, 28566397440 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3473 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -u /dev/sda5
The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 3473.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
(e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)
Plus the Windows partition seems to go over its limits.
Since all of my OS installations are still working, I don't know how critical this is. From reading another post, I understand this might be able to be fixed by making some changes in fstab.
Help would be appreciated