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#1 2005-09-08 14:58:35

Carbono
Member
From: Quebec City, Canada
Registered: 2005-04-13
Posts: 54

Grub error 17 after moving partition

Hi!

I've been using Arch for several months on my laptop (I love it!), in dual-boot with WinXP.

Last night I used PartitionMagic 8.0 (in WinXP) to move/resize partitions on my disk and now Grub won't load. I get Grub loading, please wait... error 17. My partitions, before my mess :oops: , where:

part1 - C: (WinXP, NTFS))
part2 - boot linux (small [32 MB]: I never used it)
part3 - swap
part4 - root (Arch, Ext3)
part5 - E: (shared between OS's (FAT))

First, I splitted part5 in 2 parts (E: and J: (the new part6)). Everything worked fine.

Second, I backed up my data on part5 on an external drive and created free space (i.e., I deleted this partition so that part6 can become the new part5). That also worked.

Then I wanted to give the freed space from the old part5 to part1. In order to connect this space to part1, it needed to move the partitions on the disk (not change the order, just move there locations on the disk). PartitionMagic stopped while moving the partitions and gave an error message. :?

Now, what I think happened is that Grub knows on what part the menu.lst file is (part4) but the memory address of this part has moved.

I think the easiest solution would be to reinstall Arch over my previous installation, so that everything will be re-mapped for Grub. Is it possible to do this without suppressing my old installation (i.e., keeping apps and data)? Or does anyone have a better idea or procedure to tell Grub where is menu.lst?

Thanks a lot

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#2 2005-09-08 15:10:41

Carbono
Member
From: Quebec City, Canada
Registered: 2005-04-13
Posts: 54

Re: Grub error 17 after moving partition

Me again:

I forgot to mention that at this point, since the "partition moving" process isn't finished yet (since it stopped before completing its task), my parts are like this (As seen when running /arch/setup/ from the Arch 0.7 CD-ROM and looking at "Partition Hard Drives" (cfdisk)):

Disc1   Boot   Primary   NTFS    (my C:, WinXP)
Disc2            Primary   Linux   (my small boot I never used)
Disc3            Primary   Linux Swap
                    Logical     Free space
Disc5            Logical     Linux    (my Arch installation)
Disc6            Logical     W95 FAT32   (my shared part)

I can see that my Free Space has moved from after my Arch installation to before it. But it is not connected to my WinXP part yet.

Hope this will clarify things a bit.

Thanks

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#3 2005-09-08 15:42:01

mpie
Member
From: 404 Not found
Registered: 2005-03-06
Posts: 649

Re: Grub error 17 after moving partition

could try re installing grub......

just make sure you have edited menu.lst to  and fstab to reflect any relevant changes


grub-install ........ hmmmmm

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#4 2005-09-08 15:48:49

Carbono
Member
From: Quebec City, Canada
Registered: 2005-04-13
Posts: 54

Re: Grub error 17 after moving partition

How do I grub-install?

Do I need the Arch boot CD? Or Knoppix (which I never used)?

When booting from the Hard Disk (not from the Arch CD), I think I cannot enter any commands. My screen hangs after ...Error 17 during the loading if Grub stage 1.5.

Thanks

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#5 2005-09-08 16:02:06

mpie
Member
From: 404 Not found
Registered: 2005-03-06
Posts: 649

Re: Grub error 17 after moving partition

yeah  boot from cd but mount your partition eg


/arch root=/discs/disc**** youre install***


once youre the as root

its as easy as grub-install, But edit menu.lst first if you have made any changes...

take a peek at the wiki it covers this method in detail..

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#6 2005-09-08 18:17:37

Carbono
Member
From: Quebec City, Canada
Registered: 2005-04-13
Posts: 54

Re: Grub error 17 after moving partition

I tried :

arch root=/dev/discs/disc0/part5

It didn't work. :cry:  It booted but I got to the same point as if I pressed ENTER at the boot prompt.

Then if I try grub-install it doesn't work. I can't even find the menu.lst file. If I

ls

I see the directories on the cd. I also see my partitions (hda1, hda2, etc.) and their respective sizes when I

cat /proc/partitions

From the Wiki(http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Res … oot_loader) I tried

vmlinuz root=/dev/hda5

. It booted but stopped in the process, saying:

kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: unable to mount root fs on unknown block(3,5)

I tried all my other hda's (hda3, hda6, etc.) just to be sure I had the right partition but no. Apparently, something is screwed up on my root partition.

Now I don't know what to do. Also, the thing is that even if I get to boot again my 2 Os's, I'll need to terminate the connection of the free memory with my first partition and redo the grub install again.

Do you know if I can install Arch from my CD on the same partition it is now, without erasing all my apps, configs, etc.?

Thanx wink

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#7 2005-09-08 18:28:00

mpie
Member
From: 404 Not found
Registered: 2005-03-06
Posts: 649

Re: Grub error 17 after moving partition

Nah dont think it can be done, as you cant find the partition.

when you moved them you may have scrambles the table given that cfdisk doesn,t see them

what does fdisk -l /dev/hda return...


if that cant read it then you may not be able to recover easily...

it sounds like the logical partition is muddled, if you moved one then it may have renamed them, so we need to find out what is where.

do you have another live disk such as knoppix or dsl that you can boot and try mounting the partions to find your install  and the no of your partion you can from there edit your fstab and menu.lst  chroot and run grub-install ...

if this post has lost you you may be better of wiping you logical partition and starting again, this is the easiest option , unless you have some stuff that you cant loose

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#8 2005-09-08 19:17:06

Carbono
Member
From: Quebec City, Canada
Registered: 2005-04-13
Posts: 54

Re: Grub error 17 after moving partition

what does fdisk -l /dev/hda return...

Returned nothing (i.e., nothing happened).

fdisk /dev/hda

returned

unable to open /dev/hda

But if I enter the installation with the CD and look at my partitions,as mentionned in my second post, I can see them.

I also see them with cat /proc/partitions. Why?

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#9 2005-09-08 19:29:21

Carbono
Member
From: Quebec City, Canada
Registered: 2005-04-13
Posts: 54

Re: Grub error 17 after moving partition

Also, I just discovered something:

When I boot from the CD and at the boot prompt just press ENTER, then when I

ls /dev/discs/disc0

I get nothing.

If instead I type

arch root=/dev/discs/disc0/part5

at the boot prompt, when I

ls /dev/discs/disc0

I get this:

disc  part1  part2  part3  part4  part5  part6

Does this look more encouraging for me?

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#10 2005-09-09 05:53:32

mpie
Member
From: 404 Not found
Registered: 2005-03-06
Posts: 649

Re: Grub error 17 after moving partition

dude I'm confused.......

where is arch living in your second post you say part4.....

yet youre trying to boot part5...... 

fdisk /dev/hda not what i asked .... fdisk -l just to see if it can read youre partitions, dont need to be able to open them

and as the cd uses defvs may have more luck with

fdisk -l /dev/discs/disc0 if it can read them then just mount it and run grub-install from there after chrooting

e.g

mkdir /mnt
mount /dev/discs/disc0/part(where arch lives) /mnt
chroot /mnt
grub-install

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