Arch Linux

Panu

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2005-10-09

Posts: 27

Renumbering of partitions - A Problem? [SOLVED]

I just resized an NTFS partition in the beginning of the HD to create a new Linux partition, Arch is at the end of the HD.

As I've understood, if I create a new Linux partition, hda partition numbers will be renumbered. Is there any other place than fstab that I should worry about (to keep Arch working)?

Snowman

Developer/Forum Fellow

From: Montreal, Canada

Registered: 2004-08-20

Posts: 5,212

Re: Renumbering of partitions - A Problem? [SOLVED]

You should also worry about lilo.conf or menu.lst

Panu

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2005-10-09

Posts: 27

Re: Renumbering of partitions - A Problem? [SOLVED]

Added a new partition, and all hda's got renumbered (+1).

Previously  /boot was hda5 and / was hda6

My menu.lst was like this previously:

# (0) Arch
Title    Arch  [/boot/vmlinuz26]
root   (hd0,4)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/hda6 ro

# (1) windows
etc..   (hd0,0) ...

Now I've booted with Live CD, and tried changing hda6->hda7 as well as (hd0,4) -> (hd0,5) and both with no luck  :shock: .

When booting, GRUB fails with error 17, which means

"Cannot mount selected partition
This error is returned if the partition requested exists, but the filesystem type cannot be recognized by GRUB."

Do I have to activate the new menu.lst somehow, like in lilo?

Snowman

Developer/Forum Fellow

From: Montreal, Canada

Registered: 2004-08-20

Posts: 5,212

Re: Renumbering of partitions - A Problem? [SOLVED]

Did you also changed your fstab? If not, change it to your new setup. I can't suggest anything else as I don't use grub...

When I added a partition like you did, I had modified fstab but forgot to change lilo.conf. But booting with arch installation CD and updating lilo.conf to the new /dev/hdaX and running lilo fixed it.

iphitus

Forum Fellow

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2004-10-09

Posts: 4,927

Re: Renumbering of partitions - A Problem? [SOLVED]

You should check the numbering.

If you had say...

/dev/hda1 (a)
/dev/hda5 (b)
/dev/hda6 (c)

Before hand, and you added a new one AFTER hda5,

/dev/hda1 (a)
/dev/hda5 (b)
--- /dev/hda6 (d)
/dev/hda7 (c) (was 6)

Only the ones AFTER it are renumbered, not everything.

iphitus

Panu

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2005-10-09

Posts: 27

Re: Renumbering of partitions - A Problem? [SOLVED]

OK I got it sorted out. This is what I did:

The new /boot partition is hda6 and the new / partition is hda7

Insert Arch CD, and from the boot prompt run "vmlinuz root=/dev/hda7"
Then after booting set the menu.lst to read

root (hd0,5)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/hda7 ro

Save it , and run "grub-install /hda/dev/"
Take Arch CD out and reboot.

The confusing thing was that "root hd(0,5)" which refers to hda6 (ie /boot) was different than   "root=dev/hda7" which is the root partition. And yes, the grub-install had to be run...