Hello all,

in my notebook I installed Windows XP in a primary NTFS partition and Mandrake Linux 10.1 in the extended partition.

All was working fine, but a day I decided to create a new FAT32 partition with Partition Magic 8 to use it to exchange data between the two OS.

My error was to create this new partition after the NTFS and before all the Linux partitions.

Now I cannot boot Linux; I get the following error messages:

Mounting root filesystem
VFS: Can't find ext3 filesystem on dev hda5.
mount: error 22 mounting ext3 flags defaults
well, retrying without the option flags
VFS:Can't find ext3 filesystem on dev hda5.
mount: error 22 mounting ext3
well, retrying read-only without any flag
VFS:CAn't find ext3 filesystem on dev hda5.
mount: error 22 mounting ext3
pivotroot: pivot_root(/sysroot,/sysroot/initrd) failed: 2
umount /initrd/sys failed: 2
umount /initrd/proc failed: 2
Initrd finished
Freeing unused kernel memory: 200k freed
Kernel panic: No init found. Try passing init= option to kernel.

It is apparent that the bootloader (grub) is trying to start Linux from hda5, but now hda5 is my new FAT32 partition.
How can I say to grub to search for linux on hda6 instead on hda5?

Probably if I remove my partition the problem shall disappear, but I'd like to know if there is a solution avoiding me to do that.

A lot of thanks in advance.

Download and burn a live-cd (such as Knoppix) if you don't already have one. Use it to boot your system, load your grub configuration file (either grub.conf or menu.lst), and change the device entries to match your new setup.

Thanks for your answer.

Following your suggestion, I started Knoppix and searched for grub.conf and menu.lst, but I didn't find neither of them.

Besides I think that the configuration file of grub, even if it is present on hda6, it cannot be found because the bootloader searches for it on hda5.

Maybe I have to make same change to data stored on the Master Boot Record using some utility to reconfigure grub.

Do I say wrong?

When you boot into Knoppix, you will have to manually mount the partition that contains your grub configuration file. If you don't know which partition it is, then you'll have to search through them all. This will find the file if it exists (after you mount all of your partitions):
Open an editor and make the necessary changes to the file the find command returns. It should return only one file. If not, you'll need to figure out which one is correct based on which partition it's stored in. You will probably also need to tell Knoppix to re-mount the partition read/write. You can do this by right-clicking the icon for the partition and finding a menu item that says something to the effect of "enable read/write", "Change read/write mode", or something similar.

You shouldn't have to do anything with grub other than change the configuration file. That's the way grub was designed. The only time you would have to reinstall grub is if you add a new piece of hardware that changes grub's internal device mapping (which you have not done).

Thanks for your help another time.

I tryed to do everything you said: I mounted all the partions and searched for the two files using the command you suggested me, but I didn't find anything.

I don't know how to proceed.

If you are absolutely certain you have mounted all of your partitions and checked each one for a fil named grub.conf or menu.lst, and did not find one, then you aren't using grub for your bootloader. The only other bootloader it could be is LILO. You can try booting Knoppix again and changing the previous command to:
If it finds a matching file, then great. Edit lilo.conf to match your new setup.

If it doesn't find a file, then something is wrong:
1) the command was typed/copied incorrectly
2) one or more of your partitions are not mounted
3) the partition that had the boot manager files is corrupt/deleted/broken

Isn't there any "update"? E.g. when I was using Mandy9.2 I could "reinstall" the system by choosing "update". And it updates just about 5 mins with all needed repeairs.
_____
Now I use Slackware10.0
_____
Slackware "you have mail":
Psychology. Mind over matter.
Mind under matter? It doesn't matter.
Never mind.

SOLVED!!!

First of all, I have to say that I was sure to have GRUB installed as bootloader, because I have a subdirectory called grub inside /boot, but I was wrong: my bootloader is LILO.

I succeded in solving my problem, following these steps:

1) I started Knoppix;

2) I mounted as read/write my ext3 partitions in the SAME position they are mounted in my Mandrake Linux configuration, using this commands:
mount /dev/hda5 /mnt/hda5
chroot /mnt/hda5
mount /dev/hda6 /home

3) After a backup of lilo.conf, I modified this file to reflect my new partitions names, in my case I replaced all occurrencies of hda5 with hda6, and hda6 with hda7

4) To install the previous modifications, I launched lilo with command:
lilo -C /home/simone/lilo.conf
Messagges indicating the Operating Systems installed in the LILO menu should appear, with an * near the default OS

5) I rebooted and all was working fine.

Very important are steps 2 and 4, because the MBR is overwritten with informations that must be consistent with both the current (Knoppix) configuration and the final (Mandrake) one.

Thanks everybody and bye