Install failure, /dev/disk/by-uuid/8**** does not exist.

[Aart Koelewijn]

On Sat, 14 Jun 2008 09:25:23 +0000, Aart Koelewijn wrote:

> On Fri, 13 Jun 2008 21:05:32 +0200, Nils Kassube wrote:
> 
>> Aart Koelewijn wrote:
>>> I tried the live 8.04 cd, which worked nicely, so I proceded to
>>> install. All seemed to go well, but at the end the install procedure
>>> broke off and when I tried to boot from hard-disk I got "GRUB loading
>>> stage 1.5.  Error 15". In the /boot directory there is no grub
>>> subdirectory. The last 50 lines of /var/log/syslog are below, but what
>>> took my attention was the line:
>>>
>>> Jun 13 13:21:00 ubuntu migration-assistant: error: /dev/disk/by-
>>> uuid/8eddddba-dc57-4771-b1bf-015323dade22 does not exist.
>>>
>>> I tried this a number of times with somewhat different hd parameters,
>>> but always got the same result. I also tried to install 7.10, which
>>> was originally installed on these computers, but again the same
>>> result.
>>>
>>> The computer has a 450 MHz Pentium III, about 750 MB ram and 2
>>> harddisks, one of 6.5 GB which I use as root and one of about 14 GB
>>> which is used as /home and /swap and on which I once also tried to
>>> install /boot. The other times /boot was not in a separate partition.
>>> I
>>>  did  not format   /home, but did format all the other partitions.
>> 
>> I would disconnect the second disk (with swap and /home) and then try
>> to install again. Use manual partitioning and select to only create the
>> / partition without swap (if possible). You have enough RAM so it
>> should work without swap. I would expect that the installation now will
>> be complete including boot loader.
>> 
>> Then if you can boot from the new installation, connect the second hard
>> disk. I suppose, your /home partition is already set up from your
>> previous installation attempts. Then modify /etc/fstab and add the
>> /home partition. If you don't know how to do it, please post the output
>> of the command
>> 
>> ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid/
>> 
>> and the contents of your /etc/fstab file. After modifying the fstab use
>> the command
>> 
>> sudo mount -a
>> 
>> and check that the /home partiton is actually mounted.
>> 
>> 
>> Nils
> 
> Thank you for your suggestions Nils, they look very usefull. The /home
> partition was indeed already set up, so I tried to save that, but now
> I'm in the deep already I decided to go for it all the way, replace the
> disk with the root patition by a not as old much bigger one, use that
> for a new home partition and use the one where I now have the /home
> partition as the new root. I hope I can get all the bits and pieces
> installed right, because for me this is the first time I fiddle so much
> with all the hardware.
> 
> As I'm working on a computer which has about the same set up I want to
> create on the other one, I can use the /etc/fstab here as an example.
> 
> I'll let the list know how it all ends up.
> 
> Aart

After the change with the hard disck described above, extra carefull with 
the master/slave jumpers on the hard discks, all went well and at the 
moment 162 updates are beiing installed. 8.04 seems to work fine on this 
old computer, a bit slow, but that is to be expected. Now on to getting 
everything back the way it was so my wife will not have any unpleasant 
surprises. It is her computer and I choose this week for an upgrade 
because she is away for a week. Has to be working like before when she 
gets back.

Thanks everybody for the help.

Aart