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Suse won't boot after fstab changes - fstab not editable

Dear Community,
I wanted two partitions that were'nt mounted at boot, to be mounted automatically. Root could mount them by right-click mount, users had to mount via the Terminal.
So I played around with fstab, and rebooted. Boot worked fine, but the partitions were still not mounted. Then I tried editing fstab with YaST, reboot again, and the system would'nt load, not even in Failsafe.
Right now I am working with a kubuntu live cd, which won't let me edit the fstab anymore, due to missing rights. I tried various editors with root, however the file is saved as a read-only, which I can't change.
Thanks for your time,
baking-a-77

Try using the live cd to chroot into your system and edit the file:

At your live-cd command prompt make a directory in /mnt

Mount your system root drive in the new directory

chroot to that directory and edit your fstab

Use Slax Live CD

It even allows you to boot to the desktop as a root user.

The latest version 6.0.0 allows you to edit and save files in a NTFS partition identically as any Linux file by drag and drop.

If your Suse's fstab file has an error the kernel will not be able to mount the files as instructed and so it won't boot. So using a Live CD to correct the error is the way forward.

Missing permissions? Are you sure you trying to do this as root? If you use su - and submit the root password before you start mounting things, I don't see any reason why Suse should deny access from any liveCD.

Hmm, I was definitely root. In anycase, I booted with SlaX and it worked immediately. No I need some help setting up the fstab again so that it works. If I try to boot suse, it stops with:

Code:

resume device /dev/sda5 not found (ignoring)

Waiting for device /dev/sda6 to appear.......................not found

This is the fstab as it lookes right now:

Code:

/dev/sda6            /                    reiserfs  acl,user_xattr        1 1

/dev/sda5            swap                swap      defaults              0 0

/dev/sda4            /mnt/FAT32112        vfat      auto,users,rw,umask=0002 1 2

/dev/sda7            /mnt/reiserFS39      reiserfs  auto,users,rw,acl      1 2

proc                /proc                proc      defaults              0 0

sysfs                /sys                sysfs      noauto                0 0

debugfs              /sys/kernel/debug    debugfs    noauto                0 0

usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs noauto,devmode=0666 0 0

devpts              /dev/pts            devpts    mode=0620,gid=5      0 0

Thanks in advance,
baking-a-77

What changes do I have to make, so that it will boot and mount sda4 & sda7?

If you are booting the latest Kubuntu there is a possibility that its installer still sees your Pata as hda but the installed kernel, 2.6.20 and later, sees all Pata as Sata disks.

Use Ubuntu and post here the output of

Code:

fdisk -l

See also if you could post /boot/grub/menu.lst in sda6. You need to mount it first if Ubuntu does not mount it for you

Code:

sudo mkdir /mnt/sda6

sudo mount /dev/sda6 /mnt/sda6

cat /mnt/sda6/boot/grub/menu.lst

It is a SATA drive, so obviously it is recognized as one by the installed SuSE, Slax and also kubuntu (edgy) live cds.
Here is the information you wanted:
fdisk

Code:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ fdisk -l



Disk /dev/sda: 521 MB, 521240064 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 63 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes



  Device Boot      Start        End      Blocks  Id  System

/dev/sda1  *          1          64      508992    e  W95 FAT16 (LBA)

Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:

    phys=(62, 254, 63) logical=(63, 94, 30)



Disk /dev/sdb: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes



  Device Boot      Start        End      Blocks  Id  System

/dev/sdb1  *          1        3824    30716248+  7  HPFS/NTFS

/dev/sdb2            3825      11855    64509007+  5  Extended

/dev/sdb3          11856      15680    30724312+  7  HPFS/NTFS

/dev/sdb4          15681      30401  118246432+  b  W95 FAT32

/dev/sdb5            3825        4206    3068383+  82  Linux swap / Solaris

/dev/sdb6            4207        6817    20972826  83  Linux

/dev/sdb7            6818      11855    40467703+  83  Linux

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ cat /media/usbdisk-1/boot/grub/menu.lst

menu.lst

Code:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo cat /media/usbdisk-1/boot/grub/menu.lst

# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Fr Jan 12 19:32:13 CET 2007



color white/blue black/light-gray

default 0

timeout 8

gfxmenu (hd0,5)/boot/message



###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###

title SUSE Linux 10.1

    root (hd0,5)

    kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda6 vga=0x317    resume=/dev/sda5  splash=si

    initrd /boot/initrd



###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows###

title Windows

    chainloader (hd0,0)+1



###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: xen###

title XEN

    root (hd0,5)

    kernel /boot/xen.gz

    module /boot/vmlinuz-xen root=/dev/sda6 vga=0x317    resume=/dev/sda5  splas

    module /boot/initrd-xen



###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###

title Failsafe -- SUSE Linux 10.1

    root (hd0,5)

    kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda6 vga=normal showopts ide=nodma apm=off ac

    initrd /boot/initrd

Thanks for the help so far,
baking-a-77

How can you boot sda6 when there isn't any sda6??? Just look at the output of fdisk -l...

You need root=/dev/sdb6 instead.

Disconnect the pen drive and try again.

Your bios is giving the pen drive first bootable status and it robs the sda disk designation from the internal hard disk.

Changing the Bios to boot the internal disk first also another alternative.

If in doubt, fire up a Live CD and activate a Grub shell and ask Grub to tell you the disk order as seen by it by

Code:

grub

geometry (hd0)

geometry (hd1)

The current setting is (hd0) has only one fat16 partition of type e and that to me is a pen drive.

Your Grub didn't work because it was installed in sda but a clever user stuck a pen drive in and told the Bios "please boot my pen drive first". So the internal hard disk has been relegated as sdb.

Sorry, that I did not respond until now, because before the last two replies I tried to boot again and it worked, without me changing anything. sda4 and sda7, as SuSE recognizes them, are even mounted automatically.
Thanks again,
baking-a-77