I have Fedora installed alongside Windows 7 in a Dell desktop with Intel Core i3 processor (64-bit system). Have had it for a few years. I don't use the Windows part, probably should have deleted it long ago.

The Fedora version is called Heisenbug (I think it is 20)

The thing is that it stopped booting a few days ago. I recall a warning about running low in disk space, but did not act in time. The Windows sector boots fine. Actually, I logged into Windows and shrunk a Windows partition to create some unallocated space (to try to fix the Fedora boot).

I have created two USB flash drives that boot. One has ubuntu (I believe 16) and the other SystemRestoreCD. They both boot on this machine. They both have GParted. SYstemRestoreCD also has testdisk and many other tools I do not know how to use.

My question is, what can I do to get Fedora to boot again? Should I try to add space to the Fedora partition, fix the boot sector, etc.? And how would I do those things (step by step if possible)?

Any advice will be appreciated.

Thanks.

The rules don't allow me to post attachments. Why? I have an image from GParted. It shows filled partition (/dev/sda6), inside an extended partition (/dev/sda4). It also shows about 49 GB of unallocated space right next to /dev/sda4 ("stolen" from Windows partition /dev/sda3).

There is a post count limit to stop bots (I'm guessing). Stick the image on the web somewhere (dropbox, whatever) and tell us the address.
gparted is good at fixing partitions - just drag the edges to incorporate space, but there may be other issues like the boot-loader. Being Win7 I'm guessing BIOS, not UEFI - is that true ?.

Are you comfortable using the terminal (command line) ?.

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Thanks for the reply. Will check into BIOS or UEFI, but it is probably BIOS (got another computer, Win 8, that has UEFI, and I tend to get it confused in my mind).

Will try to post image somewhere (I don't use fb).

OK with command line, shell scripts, etc.

Thanks. Will get back with the image thing. Did not know you could drag partitions in GParted. Will hold off on doing it for now.

When the partition that contains home becomes full it prevents users from logging in but you should be able to boot to single user mode from grub and be able to copy or delete files as necessary to reduce the size to less then 95%.

You should be able to mount the filesystems from any live CD or rescue system assuming it isn't encrypted and delete or copy files as desired too.

Without knowing exactly how the drive is partitioned it is difficult to say how to add the empty space i.e. if you are using LVM or encyrption etc. Post the output of the command:

lsblk

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Thanks for the replies. Actually, the image from GParted can be found here:

https://forums.fedoraforum.org/showt...led-won-t-boot

I posted the same question at the Fedora forum, that post contains the GParted image. Have gotten no responses there

It is BIOS. I took some pictures of the system description (from the set-up screens), but they will not upload to the Fedora forum site (probably too big). Will try to post them somewhere else.

The drive is not encrypted. Not sure about LVM. Will post the output of lsblk. Need to do it from the computer in question. Almost did it from here

When I enter the computer from the USB drive, I can find out the address of the directories within Fedora by looking at the properties of the partitions. The addresses are long strings enclosed in quotes. I can list these addresses, keeping the quotes using the usual ls command (except that I cannot use auto-completion or wild card) and can remove (rm) files that way. They seem to go away, but the partition is still full.

As I said, will post output of lsblk from that computer.

Thanks.

Here it is (actually, it shows lvm):

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sdb 8:16 1 14.9G 0 disk
└─sdb1 8:17 1 14.9G 0 part /cdrom
sr0 11:0 1 1024M 0 rom
loop0 7:0 0 1.5G 1 loop /rofs
sdc 8:32 1 14.9G 0 disk
└─sdc1 8:33 1 14.9G 0 part /media/ubuntu/LEXAR
sda 8:0 0 931.5G 0 disk
├─sda4 8:4 0 1K 0 part
├─sda2 8:2 0 12.3G 0 part
├─sda5 8:5 0 500M 0 part
├─sda3 8:3 0 479.8G 0 part
├─sda1 8:1 0 39.2M 0 part
└─sda6 8:6 0 390.1G 0 part
├─fedora_kiran--pc-home 253:1 0 334.4G 0 lvm
├─fedora_kiran--pc-root 253:2 0 50G 0 lvm
└─fedora_kiran--pc-swap 253:0 0 5.8G 0 lvm

You need to delete/copy enough space to go below 95% (assuming ext4) before the partition will not show full which is 16GB for home and 2.5GB for root. I assume you are able to mount the logical volumes.

You can not use the unallocated space until you add it to the extended partition. Once the space is part of the extended partition you can add to either logical volume.

You probably have something logging excessively to /var/log. Check the files in there and delete old ones to get the size down. Adjust rsyslog.conf or whatever is doing the logging to fix. I usually disable cron from logging on Fedora since it seems too chatty.

Let's see these.

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Sorry, I have not updated. Moved everything I found in Downloads to an external drive. It should have freed up ~ 6GB, but I do not see that showing up in GParted. Maybe I need to (attempt to) reboot, and it will update the information (or will boot successfully!).

Thanks very much for your help with this. This machine is where my son has all his school work, so this issue has caused us headaches. Of course, we have found work-arounds, but it will be so much better when we get this thing back working.

Here are those outputs:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ df -hT
Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev devtmpfs 2.9G 0 2.9G 0% /dev
tmpfs tmpfs 584M 16M 568M 3% /run
/dev/sdb1 vfat 15G 1.6G 14G 11% /cdrom
/dev/loop0 squashfs 1.5G 1.5G 0 100% /rofs
aufs aufs 2.9G 658M 2.3G 23% /
tmpfs tmpfs 2.9G 47M 2.9G 2% /dev/shm
tmpfs tmpfs 5.0M 8.0K 5.0M 1% /run/lock
tmpfs tmpfs 2.9G 0 2.9G 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs tmpfs 2.9G 5.8M 2.9G 1% /tmp
tmpfs tmpfs 584M 120K 584M 1% /run/user/999
/dev/mapper/fedora_kiran--pc-home ext4 329G 32G 281G 11% /media/ubuntu/1b426e42-6745-4319-a434-3621e575867c
/dev/mapper/fedora_kiran--pc-root ext4 50G 50G 0 100% /media/ubuntu/27c3ed23-cd5f-4a5d-8a44-da6f0805b59f
/dev/sda5 ext4 477M 119M 329M 27% /media/ubuntu/1bf91077-1148-44ae-9871-66b5ce5d7b11
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$


ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo parted /dev/sda "print free"
Model: ATA ST31000524AS (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 1000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 32.3kB 41.1MB 41.1MB primary fat16 diag
41.1MB 41.9MB 817kB Free Space
2 41.9MB 13.2GB 13.2GB primary ntfs boot
3 13.2GB 528GB 515GB primary ntfs
528GB 581GB 52.4GB Free Space
4 581GB 1000GB 419GB extended
5 581GB 581GB 524MB logical ext4
6 581GB 1000GB 419GB logical lvm
1000GB 1000GB 745kB Free Space

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$

Since your booting from a live USB I would expect anything deleted would instantly be reflected in the output of the df command. What did you delete?

gparted/parted does not display any information about logical volumes.

I deleted ~6GB of stuff from the Download directory (old downloaded files).

I think this should have freed up some space in /home. May not be relevant for booting. Actually, it was not able to reboot.

I do not understand this line from df:
/dev/mapper/fedora_kiran--pc-home ext4 329G 32G 281G 11% /media/ubuntu/1b426e42-6745-4319-a434-3621e575867c
It seems to suggest there is plenty of space available (281GB) in home.

A separate question, maybe I need to clear some of those 50G in root:
/dev/mapper/fedora_kiran--pc-root ext4 50G 50G 0 100% /media/ubuntu/27c3ed23-cd5f-4a5d-8a44-da6f0805b59f

Yet another question, is there a reason that when working from the USB things look different after I just log in than a while later?

For example, if I run df -hT right now, I do not get all the information I included in my previous post. I only get:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ df -hT
Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev devtmpfs 2.9G 0 2.9G 0% /dev
tmpfs tmpfs 584M 8.7M 576M 2% /run
/dev/sdb1 vfat 15G 1.6G 14G 11% /cdrom
/dev/loop0 squashfs 1.5G 1.5G 0 100% /rofs
aufs aufs 2.9G 127M 2.8G 5% /
tmpfs tmpfs 2.9G 26M 2.9G 1% /dev/shm
tmpfs tmpfs 5.0M 8.0K 5.0M 1% /run/lock
tmpfs tmpfs 2.9G 0 2.9G 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs tmpfs 2.9G 648K 2.9G 1% /tmp
tmpfs tmpfs 584M 96K 584M 1% /run/user/999
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$

Notice how the last three lines I had before (with information on the Fedora locations) are missing now. I have noticed this same behaviour in other features. For example, if I open a file browser, I do not see all the locations in the computer right away. After I use it for a while, I see pointers to different volumes (the Windows and Fedora locations). I get the impression that the USB finds more places in my computer after I try a few times.

Thanks.

OK, for this (non booting) issue:
- no-one except you and your lad care about /home. We may steal some space from it later.
- the 50G root is the problem and where you need to concentrate
- the liveCD is a generic tool, you can explore its vagaries later.

Once the LVM (/dev/mapper) mounts have appeared, run these - may take a while, just let it run. Make sure the first command matches the pc-root mountpoint -- it should, but use whatever the "df" shows.