Suse won't boot after fstab changes

baking-a-77 · 05-20-2007, 04:32 AM

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

mdg · 05-20-2007, 04:49 AM

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

saikee · 05-20-2007, 05:45 AM

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.

jay73 · 05-20-2007, 11:29 PM

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.

baking-a-77 · 05-22-2007, 01:20 PM

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

baking-a-77 · 05-26-2007, 12:21 PM

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

saikee · 05-26-2007, 06:18 PM

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

baking-a-77 · 05-29-2007, 04:07 AM

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

jay73 · 05-29-2007, 05:13 AM

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.

saikee · 05-29-2007, 10:38 AM

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.

baking-a-77 · 06-02-2007, 10:51 AM

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