laptop-mode disabled in kernel? Now: how to fix grub after converting to reiserfs?

[marc]

marc said...
> James Gray said...
> > 
> > marc wrote:
> > > In Dapper, my laptop fan never turns off after the first few minutes. It 
> > > is always on. Whereas, in Windows, it rarely comes on. I'm pretty sure 
> > > that this is because the disk never spins down.
> > 
> > - -->8-- Snipped --8<--
> > 
> > > Back to the disk. There's only one active ext3 partition plus swap - all 
> > > other partitions are noauto. I've tried noatime and commit=600, but to 
> > > noavail. Any ideas?
> > 
> > ext3 is the problem with your disk.  It uses a forced-flush interval of
> > about 30 sec IIRC.  In other words, regardless of what is or isn't going
> > on, the ext3 driver forces a sync and hence the hard drive never goes to
> > sleep (neither would you if someone poked you in the ribs every 30
> > seconds!).
> > 
> > Solution, unfortunately, requires reformatting ALL the ext3 partitions
> > with something else.  I'd suggest reiserfs as, like ext3, is a
> > journaling file system and is quite mature.  I can't remember if jfs and
> > xfs use the same "fixed sync interval" fru-fru like ext3 though, so I'll
> > hold short of recommending them.
> 
> Thanks for this. I was in two minds about going this way, but then 
> decided to jump.
> 
> And now, I have a little problem :-o
> 
> Here's the story, so far
> 
> - moved Kubuntu (on sda3) to a safe place while booted on another 
> partition (sda6)
> - formatted sda3 as reiserfs
> - amended both fstabs (sda3 and sda6)
> - mounted the newly formatted partition
> - moved the data back onto sda3
> - rebooted.
> 
> Grub currently loads from sda3, or rather it doesn't now. I'm getting an 
> error 17 : Cannot mount selected partition. I'm not overly surprised, 
> but I'm not sure what to do next.
> 
> I can mount the partition from a live CD without a problem, and I 
> obviously mounted it from my sda6 partition.
> 
> Suggestions welcomed.

I should have added that the MBR is on sda2, which is a FAT partition 
containing that other OS.

-- 
Best,
Marc