Arch Linux

stuvjordan

Member

Registered: 2011-08-09

Posts: 26

[SOLVED] mount the BIOS boot partition at /mnt???

Hello all:

I'm installing a new arch system on a box with a BIOS motherboard.  I'd like to use grub and a GPT-partitioned drive, so, following the Beginner's Guide, I've set up an extra BIOS partition of 1007KiB.  Having set this up, and put the filesystems on the resulting partitions, here's the output of lsblk /dev/sda

sda1 8:1 0 1007K 0 part
sda2 8:2 0  2.7T 0 part

So, still following the beginners guide, the next step is to mount the partitions.  At this point, the guide's directions seem wierd to me, so I wanted to check if I should actually follow them as they read.  In the Mount the Partitions Section, the guide says to first mount the root partition on /mnt

# mount /dev/sda1 /mnt

Then mount any separate partition (/boot, /var, etc.) if you have any:

# mkdir /mnt/home
# mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/home

Should I really follow this to the letter?  More specifically, should I mount the BIOS boot partition, which is at sda1, at /mnt, and then the actual "root" partition at a subdirectory of /mnt (e.g. /mnt/root)?  For some reason that strikes me as wierd.  Or does it matter?

Thanks!

Last edited by stuvjordan (2013-08-15 21:54:47)

WonderWoofy

Member

From: Los Gatos, CA

Registered: 2012-05-19

Posts: 8,414

Re: [SOLVED] mount the BIOS boot partition at /mnt???

You can't mount the bios boot partition because it shouldn't have a filesystem.  It is really just an area for grub2 to put its extra bloat when you use GPT.  Otherwise, if using ms-dos/MBR partitioning, then it would want to put it after the MBR but before the first partition.  This space is used with GPT for the partition table, hence the need for the bios boot partition. 

So you don't need to do anything with it other than create it.

stuvjordan

Member

Registered: 2011-08-09

Posts: 26

Re: [SOLVED] mount the BIOS boot partition at /mnt???

thanks wonderwoofy....

so, thing is I already put a filesystem on the bios boot partition.  Do I need to remove that?  If so, how do I do that. (my guess: repartition from scratch?)

thanks!

WonderWoofy

Member

From: Los Gatos, CA

Registered: 2012-05-19

Posts: 8,414

Re: [SOLVED] mount the BIOS boot partition at /mnt???

I don't *think* you should... but I ahve never actually tried.  It will throw an error at you when you do grub-install if this is going to be an issue.  If you want to play it safe just use wipefs to remove the superblock info that designates it as a filesystem.  (use wipefs -a /dev/whatever but be careful, as if you do this on the wrong partition, byebye filesystem)

srs5694

Member

From: Woonsocket, RI

Registered: 2012-11-06

Posts: 719

Website

Re: [SOLVED] mount the BIOS boot partition at /mnt???

thing is I already put a filesystem on the bios boot partition.  Do I need to remove that?  If so, how do I do that. (my guess: repartition from scratch?)

It shouldn't be necessary. The worst-case scenario is that grub-install will check the BIOS Boot Partition and complain or require an override switch if there's something there already. It didn't do this the last time I checked, but it's conceivable it's changed. If so, you'd remove the filesystem by using dd, as in:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda5

Change "/dev/sda5" to whatever your BIOS Boot Partition is. Repartitioning will not remove the filesystem from the partition, assuming you repartition in exactly the same way, since most partitioning tools don't write into partitions; they just define where the partitions begin and end. (OTOH, if your new partitions are slightly different size, then the BIOS Boot Partition might point to random data on the disk, rather than to a valid filesystem.)