Arch Linux

Mazh

Member

Registered: 2011-04-13

Posts: 48

Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/sda2

hello,

So I've a linux partition, and then I wanted to install a Windows copy. I've only 1 HDD with differents partition into it:

sda5 (swap)
sda6 /user
sda7/var
sda8 / (which contain the boot and root of course)
sda3 /home
sda2 NTFS (windows xp)

So, as I had linux installed before windows, I had to make my sda2 NTFS (87) under my cfdisk. Then, I went to install windows, everything worked fine, windows booted with his boot system, but I had to restore grub with my archlinux live cd:

grub> find /boot/grub/stage1
grub>root (hd0,7)
grub>setup (hd0)

everything worked successfully, my grub loaded till while booting archlinux I got this error:

couldn't find ext2 superblock, trying backup blocks...
e2fsck: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/sda2

The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2
filesystem. If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2
filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock
is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock:
e2fsck -b 8193 <device>

What I tried is to run the e2fsck -b 8193 /dev/sda2 but right after that, I thought about it, this isn't linux partition so of course, the superblock isn't the same as they are ntfs type from widnows?

I've read on some forum but unfortunately didn't solve my problem, if anyone has any suggestion before I format the NTFS partition, I'd really appreciate it.

best regards, maz

Mazh

Member

Registered: 2011-04-13

Posts: 48

Re: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/sda2

bump

I'mGeorge

Member

Registered: 2011-03-23

Posts: 150

Re: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/sda2

what I think it happened, is that after installing windows your partitions numbers got twisted a bit. What you have to do is to edit /etc/fstab, and check out your linux and swap partitions mounting entries, I believe you just have to change the number of /dev/sda[number] coresponding to your linux partition in fstab

If you can't solve it, post the output of

fdisk -l

and

cat /etc/fstab

Last edited by I'mGeorge (2011-07-21 20:53:31)

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I've first installed Arch in March