Arch Linux

chris_debian

Member

From: Wiltshire, UK

Registered: 2009-02-24

Posts: 284

Post install boot...'superblock could not be read'.

Hi, all.

Just done an install and am on my reboot.

The boot menu comes up and the default option is chosen after timeout.

After a while it halts saying

superblock could not be read /dev/hda2

hda2 is my / and it is an ext4 partition.  It is suggested I run

e2fsck -b 8193 <device>

so I do

e2fsck -b 8193 /dev/hda2

This fails with the error

No such file or directory while trying to open /dev/hda2

The only thing I can think is that e2fsck is not liking my ext4 partition.

I've installed Arch several times before and have never had this problem.  Can anyone help?

Many thanks,

Chris.

---

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tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: Post install boot...'superblock could not be read'.

/dev/hd* devices are created by the now-almost-obsolete ide drivers. Arch will only use them if you specifically configure it to do so - the default is to use the pata drivers, which create /dev/sd* devices.

Are you sure you configured Arch to use the legacy ide drivers?

chris_debian

Member

From: Wiltshire, UK

Registered: 2009-02-24

Posts: 284

Re: Post install boot...'superblock could not be read'.

Thanks for replying, Tomk.

I think I understand, but I don't know how to verify what you are suggesting or indeed fix it.

Can anyone help?

Cheers,

Chris.

---

Reasons why you may want to try GNU/Linux:

www.whylinuxisbetter.net/

rockin turtle

Member

From: Montana, USA

Registered: 2009-10-22

Posts: 227

Re: Post install boot...'superblock could not be read'.

I believe I had this exact same problem a month ago.  See http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=81676  I had an older Pentium 4 system and I tried to install Arch using the "Legacy IDE" option from the 2009.08-netinstall-i686.iso CD.  That was the problem.  Even though my system didn't have sata, the correct approach was to do a standard install instead of "Legacy IDE".

If you do try to reinstall using the standard installation, you may have a problem (as I did) re-partitioning your hard disk.  cfdisk when run from the Legacy IDE option writes a partition table that makes the disk unreadable when you try to install using the standard option.  What you have to do is:

      (1)   boot from the CD using the Legacy IDE option
      (2)   run /arch/setup to manually partition your disk
      (3)   delete the last partition (or you could just delete all partitions)
      (4)   write the partition table and exit setup
      (5)   re-install from the CD using the standard installation method

tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: Post install boot...'superblock could not be read'.

Re-install may be necessary, but before you do that, edit grub's menu.lst and /etc/fstab, replacing any hd* references with the sd* equivalent. It might work.