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Hi All,
I currently have two partitions sda3 & sda5 which I can boot into. I am able to choose either one to boot from the frub menu on bootup. Initially when I installed Arch, I made a separate partition for /boot on sda1, but I'm not convinced that I have set it up right.
For instance, both sda3 and sda5 have a /boot folder under root. However, only changes to the menu.lst file on sda3 have any effect. So am I correct in assuming I have actually installed grub on sda3 as opposed to sda1?
How can I have a separate /boot which gets mounted on both sda3 and sda5 so that I don't have to mount sda3 in order to make changes to my menu.lst file
Cheers
Last edited by Madbunny (2011-01-23 07:28:15)
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Really depends on your partition table [fstab] you do not say if you dual boot
Grub is usually installed to MBR of first drive [that is seen on booting system]
Mr Green
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I'm not dual booting, only have arch linux installed on both sda3 and sda5.
My fstab has no reference to /boot.
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You have two Arch installs ? I don't know if it's good to have two machines with the same /boot partition. I would give each machine it's own /boot partition...
Which one was installed first ?
I think that the machine on sda3 owns the boot partition on sda1 and that the machine on sda5 has the /boot folder on it's root partition.
And please post your fstab and menu.lst files.
Last edited by Varg (2011-01-21 12:37:51)
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You have two Arch installs ? I don't know if it's good to have two machines with the same /boot partition. I would give each machine it's own /boot partition...
Which one was installed first ?
I think that the machine on sda3 owns the boot partition on sda1 and that the machine on sda5 has the /boot folder on it's root partition.And please post your fstab and menu.lst files.
fstab on sda3
#
# /etc/fstab: static file system information
#
# <file system> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
devpts /dev/pts devpts defaults 0 0
shm /dev/shm tmpfs nodev,nosuid 0 0
#/dev/cdrom /media/cd auto ro,user,noauto,unhide 0 0
#/dev/dvd /media/dvd auto ro,user,noauto,unhide 0 0
#/dev/fd0 /media/fl auto user,noauto 0 0
/dev/sda2 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/sda3 / ext4 defaults 0 1
#/dev/sda5 / ext4 defaults 0 1
/dev/datavg/lv_home /home ext3 acl,user_xattr 1 2
/dev/datavg/lv_audio /home/brian/Documents/audio ext3 acl,user_xattr 1 2
/dev/datavg/lv_video /home/brian/Documents/video xfs defaults
/dev/datavg/lv_photos /home/brian/Documents/photos ext3 acl,user_xattr 1 2
/dev/datavg/lv_downloads /home/brian/Documents/downloads ext3 acl,user_xattr 1 2
/dev/datavg/lv_images /home/brian/Documents/images xfs defaults
Menu.lst on sda3
# Config file for GRUB - The GNU GRand Unified Bootloader
# /boot/grub/menu.lst
# DEVICE NAME CONVERSIONS
#
# Linux Grub
# -------------------------
# /dev/fd0 (fd0)
# /dev/sda (hd0)
# /dev/sdb2 (hd1,1)
# /dev/sda3 (hd0,2)
#
# FRAMEBUFFER RESOLUTION SETTINGS
# +-------------------------------------------------+
# | 640x480 800x600 1024x768 1280x1024
# ----+--------------------------------------------
# 256 | 0x301=769 0x303=771 0x305=773 0x307=775
# 32K | 0x310=784 0x313=787 0x316=790 0x319=793
# 64K | 0x311=785 0x314=788 0x317=791 0x31A=794
# 16M | 0x312=786 0x315=789 0x318=792 0x31B=795
# +-------------------------------------------------+
# for more details and different resolutions see
# [url]http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB#Framebuffer_Resolution[/url]
# general configuration:
timeout 2
default 0
color light-blue/black light-cyan/blue
# boot sections follow
# each is implicitly numbered from 0 in the order of appearance below
#
# TIP: If you want a 1024x768 framebuffer, add "vga=773" to your kernel line.
#
#-*
# (0) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda3 ro vga=773
initrd /boot/kernel26.img
# (1) Arch Linux 2
title Arch Linux (sda5)
root (hd0,4)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda5 ro vga=773
initrd /boot/kernel26.img
# (3) Arch Linux (SDA5)
#title Arch Linux Copy 2
#root (hd0,4)
#kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root =/dev/sda5 ro vga=773
#initrd /boot/kernel26.img
(2) ArchLinux Copy Fallback
title Arch Linux Fallback
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda3 ro vga=773
initrd /boot/kernel26-fallback.img
# (2) Windows
#title Windows
#rootnoverify (hd0,0)
#makeactive
#chainloader +1
sda5 is simply a copy of sda3. It used as a backup for when I do upgrades. As I said, editing the menu.lst on sda5 has no effect whereas changes on sda3 have an effect.
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I think that the boot partition of the sda3 machine is actually just a folder in /
I found something cool after a quick search on google, try this:
$ df /boot
This will show you the partition of the boot folder.
When it's indeed on sda3, as I suspect, you might try to mount sda1 manually and see what's on that partition.
Then I was thinking to add sda1 to fstab and just copy /boot to sda1, remove the folder on sda3 and edit the menu.lst file but I have absolutely no idea if that is a safe thing to do. So you better wait for someone else to give you an answer.
On the other hand, when you would just do a reinstall of Arch to fix this, please try what I suggested and tell me if it works
Last edited by Varg (2011-01-21 13:29:24)
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I have tried mounting sda1 but I haven't been able to. It keeps telling me I have the wrong filesystem, even though I've tried all of them. If I had /boot on a separate partition, wouldn't it have to be in my fstab file to mount on both sda3 and sda5?
I'm confused as to how the whole thing works
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Would you please post the commands you entered when you attempted to mount sda1?
Does this show that /dev/sda1 exists?
$ ls /dev/sda1
If sda1 can't be seen, the message returned by the above command will be
ls: cannot access /dev/sda1: No such file or directory
Next, please show us your current partition table. You'll have to run this command with root privileges:
# fdisk -l /dev/sda
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output of fdisk -l /dev/sda
Last login: Sat Jan 22 10:16:56 2011 from desktop
[brian@htpc ~]$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda1
Disk /dev/sda1: 24 MB, 24643584 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2 cylinders, total 48132 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
[brian@htpc ~]$
Output of ls /dev/sda
/dev/sda
I tried mounting it this way:
mount -t ext2 /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1
substituting ext2 with ext3,ext4 etc but it keeps saying wrong filesystem.
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@Madbunny, I was hoping to see the whole partition table, that's why i asked for 'fdisk -l /dev/sda, not 'fdisk -l /dev/sda1'. That would give a clue as to the
If the directory '/mnt/sda1' exists, and sda1 contains a common filesystem, 'mount' should recognize the filesystem type without the need for the '-t' option.
That is, 'ls /mnt' should list 'sda1'. Then the command 'sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1' would just work without specifying the filesystem.
I'm puzzled by the return from 'fdisk -l /dev/sda1' on your machine. There should be a message that /dev/sda1 doesn't contain a valid partition table. But at least we know sda1 and sda5 exist.
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@Madbunny, I was hoping to see the whole partition table, that's why i asked for 'fdisk -l /dev/sda, not 'fdisk -l /dev/sda1'. That would give a clue as to the
If the directory '/mnt/sda1' exists, and sda1 contains a common filesystem, 'mount' should recognize the filesystem type without the need for the '-t' option.
That is, 'ls /mnt' should list 'sda1'. Then the command 'sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1' would just work without specifying the filesystem.
I'm puzzled by the return from 'fdisk -l /dev/sda1' on your machine. There should be a message that /dev/sda1 doesn't contain a valid partition table. But at least we know sda1 and sda5 exist.
Sorry, misread it.
sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda
[brian@htpc ~]$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda
Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 63 48194 24066 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 48195 3951989 1951897+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda3 3951990 43022069 19535040 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 43022070 1953520064 955248997+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 43022196 82092149 19534977 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 82092213 1953520064 935713926 8e Linux LVM
Trying to mount /dev/sda1
[brian@htpc ~]$ sudo mkdir /mnt/sda1
[brian@htpc ~]$ sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1
mount: you must specify the filesystem type
[brian@htpc ~]$
I set this machine up 6 months ago but remember setting up the sda1 partition for /boot to reside there. That way I could edit the menu.lst file from within sda3 and sda5 as /boot would be mounted in each of their fstabs.
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I would hazard a guess that sda1 is not formatted, /boot is on your root partition. Whatever you might have remembered, /boot is not in your fstab. And since grub is reading the menu.lst on sda3 it can't be configured to sda1.
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I would hazard a guess that sda1 is not formatted, /boot is on your root partition. Whatever you might have remembered, /boot is not in your fstab. And since grub is reading the menu.lst on sda3 it can't be configured to sda1.
/boot is not in my fstab, I said that was what I intended to do when I first set this all up.
I think I have worked out what to do now.
One question though, at what stage of the setup process would I have instructed /boot to mount on root sda3?
Last edited by Madbunny (2011-01-22 07:53:12)
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When you are setting the mount points make sure that you assign /boot to sda1.
During configuration add /boot to fstab.
And at the end, install grub to sda, not sda1 or sda3. Set the menu.lst like this:
title Arch Linux
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda3 ro
initrd /kernel26.img
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When you are setting the mount points make sure that you assign /boot to sda1.
During configuration add /boot to fstab.
And at the end, install grub to sda, not sda1 or sda3. Set the menu.lst like this:title Arch Linux root (hd0,0) kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda3 ro initrd /kernel26.img
Just curious, don't I need to do anything to instruct grub to read menu.lst off sda1 as opposed to sda3? At the moment it reads the menu.lst file off sda3.
I thought I'd have to do a root(0,0) at the grub command prompt.
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