Partitioning Troubles

resuni · 06-08-2010, 04:58 PM

I just upgraded to Ubuntu 10.04 and hate it. I'm having many problems with networking and a few other things. Instead of figuring out all the problems I'm having with Karmic, I decided to go back to Jaunty which actually worked for me. But I have no way of backing up all my data before reinstall. I realised I was only using ~30% of my hard drive so I decided to partition my hard drive in half and install Jaunty on the second partition. Then I could transfer all my data from the first partition to the second then erase the first and repartition again to get the Jaunty installation to fill up the entire drive. Here's where I'm having the problems:

I wrote an Ubuntu Jaunty image file to my flash drive and booted from it. So far so good. I select Install Ubuntu from that first menu that comes up. I go through the time zone and keyboard layout settings. All that works. Then I get to the screen entitled Prepare Disk Space. It tells me I have Ubuntu 10.04 installed and it asks me where I want to put Ubuntu 9.04. I select Install them side by side, choosing between them each startup and click Forward. I then get an error:

Quote:

Error informing the kernel about modifications to partition /dev/sda5 -- Device or resource busy. This means Linux won't know about any changes you made to /dev/sda5 until you reboot -- so you shouldn't mount it or use it in any way before rebooting.

I click Ignore and a window comes up entitled Please wait... and it stays there for a while. Then I get another error that says:

Quote:

An error occurred while writing the changes to the storage devices.

The resize operation has been aborted.

I click OK and it brings me to a screen where I can edit partition tables. I select the /dev/sda1 partition and click the Edit Partition button. A window comes up. When I change the New partition size field, will it keep the old Ubuntu 10.04 data in that partition and only resize it or will it format the partition as well? Also - why isn't the easier side-by-side technique working? Any help as to how I can do this is greatly appreciated.

syg00 · 06-08-2010, 05:48 PM

The partitioning aspect of Ubuntu installers has been problematic for as long as I can remember. I always pre-configure my partitions - but then again that applies to all distros.
As my sig might indicate, I'm fairly old-school re backups - don't screw around with partitions if you can't afford to lose data.

The installer will be using libparted to do the resizing (gparted does as well) - your data should be safe, but things can go wrong.
Can't help with the query re "side by side" - never looked at it.

For the future I'd suggest you move /home to a separate partition. That way you can install a new Ubuntu version into a separate partition, and use the /home partition with either. Fallback is a simple reboot, and the products I've tested with all seem to work seamlessly.
I'm not suggesting this is a substitute for backups.

resuni · 06-08-2010, 08:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by syg00

The partitioning aspect of Ubuntu installers has been problematic for as long as I can remember. I always pre-configure my partitions - but then again that applies to all distros.
As my sig might indicate, I'm fairly old-school re backups - don't screw around with partitions if you can't afford to lose data.

The installer will be using libparted to do the resizing (gparted does as well) - your data should be safe, but things can go wrong.
Can't help with the query re "side by side" - never looked at it.

For the future I'd suggest you move /home to a separate partition. That way you can install a new Ubuntu version into a separate partition, and use the /home partition with either. Fallback is a simple reboot, and the products I've tested with all seem to work seamlessly.
I'm not suggesting this is a substitute for backups.

Thanks. Many people have been telling me I should back up but I have no money and therefore can't afford to backup about 50 GB of data. If you know of any free backup services online that will take that much, please tell me. Free web and file hosting would also work.

I had never considered mounting /home on another partition as you suggest. That's a really good idea. I'll do that next time. Thanks.

Here's some more info on my problem:
I also tried booting up into the "Try Ubuntu without any changes to your computer" mode and opened up gparted. I got a similar error when I tried partitioning from there. Then I booted into my 10.04 installation and found Disk Utility and couldn't figure out how to partition with that.

jefro · 06-08-2010, 09:08 PM

Gparted usually has an error that shows up. At that time you can usually go back. Isn't there that option?

syg00 · 06-08-2010, 09:21 PM

Let's see your partition table - from a terminal

Code:

sudo fdisk
mount

resuni · 06-08-2010, 09:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jefro

Gparted usually has an error that shows up. At that time you can usually go back. Isn't there that option?

Nope. Never got a back button or anything.

Quote:

Originally Posted by syg00

Let's see your partition table - from a terminal

Code:

sudo fdisk
mount

Code:

$ sudo fdisk mount

Unable to open mount

Isn't there some du or df option that shows partition tables?

syg00 · 06-08-2010, 09:35 PM

Two commands - one of which I got wrong

Code:

sudo fdisk -l
mount

resuni · 06-08-2010, 09:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by syg00

Two commands - one of which I got wrong

Code:

sudo fdisk -l
mount

Code:

$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000924f1

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1       30031   241220608   83  Linux
/dev/sda2           30031       30402     2975744+   5  Extended
/dev/sda5           30031       30402     2975744   82  Linux swap / Solaris
$ mount
/dev/sda1 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
none on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
none on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
none on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620)
none on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
none on /var/run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
none on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
none on /lib/init/rw type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
/home/resuni/.Private on /home/resuni type ecryptfs (ecryptfs_sig=23ea51646a43f1c9,ecryptfs_fnek_sig=e431eb99e1880c8d,ecryptfs_cipher=aes,ecryptfs_key_bytes=16)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/resuni/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=resuni)
$

Not sure why it called one of the partitions Linux Swap / Solaris. I never put Solaris on that computer.

syg00 · 06-08-2010, 09:57 PM

ext4 might be the problem - you need particular level of e2fsprogs. Try this

Code:

/sbin/mke2fs -V

(capital V).

Ignore the "Solaris" thing - swap partitions always show up like that.

resuni · 06-09-2010, 10:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by syg00

ext4 might be the problem - you need particular level of e2fsprogs. Try this

Code:

/sbin/mke2fs -V

(capital V).

Ignore the "Solaris" thing - swap partitions always show up like that.

What's that command do? I kinda like knowing what things do before running them.

syg00 · 06-09-2010, 04:52 PM

Excellent !!! - but you also get a small demerit for not checking the manpage.
That merely tells us what version of the e2fsprogs you have installed. These are the tools that manipulate the ext2/3/4 filesystems - ext4 has been (relatively) recently added.

jlliagre · 06-10-2010, 08:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bradj47

Not sure why it called one of the partitions Linux Swap / Solaris. I never put Solaris on that computer.

Because the same partition id (0x82) was unfortunately picked by both Linux and Solaris developers in the early nineties.

resuni · 06-10-2010, 10:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jlliagre

unfortunately

Why do you say that?

jlliagre · 06-10-2010, 10:26 AM

Because partition IDs were supposed to uniquely identify their contents. This clash triggered a lot of confusion and some data loss (Many years ago when such cohabitation was rare, I had a Gnu/Linux distribution that wiped out my Solaris partition).