Arch Linux

oib111

Member

Registered: 2009-06-20

Posts: 87

Reinstalling GRUB

I recently got a bigger HDD for Arch and I used GParted to copy the partitions and set the /boot partition to active. Then I used dd to copy the MBR from the old drive to the new drive:

dd if=/dev/hdb of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1

So then I tried reinstalling GRUB but for some reason I couldn't mount my HDD. I tried mounting the / partition with:

mount -t ext3 /dev/hda3 /mnt

But it said:

wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /devhda3, missing codepage or helper program, oor other error. In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try dmesg | tail or so

I checked out 'dmesg | tail' and it said: "VFS: Can't find ext3 filesystem on dev hda3"

But I know for a fact that hda3 is the / partition and is using ext3.

graysky

Wiki Maintainer

From: :wq

Registered: 2008-12-01

Posts: 10,597

Website

Re: Reinstalling GRUB

hmmm.. try booting with the gparted live CD (google that) and see what your two HDDs look like to verify.  Or run an fdisk -l on /dev/hda to see that indeed you do have an /dev/hda3

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oib111

Member

Registered: 2009-06-20

Posts: 87

Re: Reinstalling GRUB

I did run an fdisk -l. It's my / file system.

theapodan

Member

From: Virginia, USA

Registered: 2008-10-21

Posts: 116

Re: Reinstalling GRUB

Have you tried forcing an fsck on the partition with fsck.ext3 -f?

oib111

Member

Registered: 2009-06-20

Posts: 87

Re: Reinstalling GRUB

No. I'll try it now. I got:

[root]@archiso ~]# fsck.ext3 -f /dev/hda3
e2fsck 1.41.3 (12-Oct-2008)
fsck.ext3: Superblock invalid, trying backup blocks
fsck.ext3: Bad magic number in super-block whle trying to open /dev/hda3

The superblock could not be read or does not describee 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>

Last edited by oib111 (2009-07-02 00:00:07)

scio

Member

From: Buffalo, NY

Registered: 2008-08-05

Posts: 366

Re: Reinstalling GRUB

I don't trust copying MBRs, I have a feeling you might have just nuked your super-block.  Did you follow the last error and try to run on an alternate super-block?

perbh

Member

From: Republic of Texas

Registered: 2005-03-04

Posts: 765

Re: Reinstalling GRUB

Did you actually _copy_ from hdb to hda? - or did you just copy the mbr?