Boot confusion

[Jack McGee]

On 6/7/21 5:09 PM, Liam Proven wrote:
> On Mon, 7 Jun 2021 at 21:42, Jack McGee <jack at greendesk.net> wrote:
>>> jack at Desktop:~$ sudo sfdisk -l
> OK, cool. Let's have a look...
>
>>> Disk /dev/sda: 232.91 GiB, 250059350016 bytes, 488397168 sectors
>>> Disk model: Samsung SSD 860
>>> Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
>>> Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
>>> I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
>>> Disklabel type: gpt
>>> Disk identifier: 562DD49D-AE00-454E-BF2D-B86CD24573E2
> OK, so disk #1 is the 250GB SSD.


Which is the current root filesystem.

>>> Disk /dev/sdb: 1.84 TiB, 2000398934016 bytes, 3907029168 sectors
>>> Disk model: ST2000DM006-2DM1
>>> Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
>>> Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
>>> I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
>>> Disklabel type: dos
> Disk #2 is the 2TB HDD.
>
> An option, that _might_ make things easier, and since you have a tonne
> of space, is to use a bootable USB to temporarily copy your root FS
> somewhere else, repartition the disk with MBR (the DOS scheme) like
> the others, and then copy the root partition back. No need for
> bios-grub partitions etc. then!
>
>>> Disk /dev/sde: 931.53 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
>>> Disk model: Samsung SSD 870
> [...]
>>> /dev/sde1        2048 1953523711 1953521664 931.5G 83 Linux
> Oh! Another 1TB SSD, with a Linux partition?
>
>>> Disk /dev/sdc: 12.75 TiB, 14000519643136 bytes, 27344764928 sectors
>>> Disk model: ST14000NM001G-2K
>>> Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
>>> Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
>>> I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
>>> Disklabel type: gpt
> OK, this is big, so it _needs_ to be GPT.
>
>>> Device          Start         End     Sectors  Size Type
>>> /dev/sdc1  6398676992 27344762879 20946085888  9.8T Linux filesystem
>>> /dev/sdc2        2048  3250528255  3250526208  1.5T Linux filesystem
>>> /dev/sdc3  3250528256  6398676991  3148148736  1.5T Linux swap
>>>
>>> Partition table entries are not in disk order.
> Another distro, perhaps?
>
>>> Disk /dev/sdd: 931.53 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
>>> Disk model: SAMSUNG HD103SI
>>> Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
>>> Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
>>> I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
>>> Disklabel type: dos
>>> Disk identifier: 0x1d1810dd
>>>
>>> Device     Boot      Start        End    Sectors   Size Id Type
>>> /dev/sdd1  *            63 1376528246 1376528184 656.4G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
>>> /dev/sdd2       1376528382 1953523711  576995330 275.1G  5 Extended
>>> /dev/sdd5       1718511616 1943887871  225376256 107.5G 83 Linux
>>> /dev/sdd6       1943889920 1953523711    9633792   4.6G 82 Linux swap
>>> / Solaris
>>> /dev/sdd7       1376528384 1704552447  328024064 156.4G 83 Linux
>>> /dev/sdd8       1704554496 1718505471   13950976   6.7G 82 Linux swap
>>> / Solaris
> And *another* HDD, a 1TB one, with Windows _and_ yet another Linux on
> it? And 2 swap partitions -- why 2?
>
>>> Disk /dev/sdf: 29.74 GiB, 31914983424 bytes, 62333952 sectors
>>> Disk model:
>>> Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
>>> Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
>>> I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
>>> Disklabel type: dos
>>> Disk identifier: 0xeecfcdba
>>>
>>> Device     Boot  Start      End  Sectors  Size Id Type
>>> /dev/sdf1         8192   532479   524288  256M  c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
>>> /dev/sdf2       532480 14360575 13828096  6.6G 83 Linux
> And what's this? An old 30 GB HDD, partly empty, parly holding a FAT32
> partition and _another_ Linux?
>
> My word, that's a lot!
>
>>> jack at Desktop:~$ sudo mount
>>> /dev/sda1 on / type ext4 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro)
> ... that's the root
>
>>> /dev/sdc2 on /mnt/sdb2 type ext4 (rw,relatime)
> ... that's a confusing mess of names for mount points!
>
> So there's a big partition on disk 3 mounted...
>
>>> /dev/sdc1 on /home type ext4 (rw,relatime)
> And your /home partition is on disk *3* not 2.
>
>>> /dev/sdd7 on /mnt/sda7 type ext4 (rw,relatime)
>>> /dev/sdd5 on /mnt/sda5 type ext4 (rw,relatime)
> And we have the partitions on the 2nd, bigger SSD mounted, again with
> confusing names.,
>
> So there is quite a mess of stuff on disks 3-5, including another
> bigger SSD, a huge HDD with your home directory, which isn't on disk
> #2 after all, and an old 30GB disk as well?
>
> Re changing the boot device -- OK, fair enough, I believe you know,
> seeing the complexity of this setup and the NFS mounts! :-)
>
> I reckon it might be worth your while to remove one small element of
> complexity and repartition the small SSD as DOS/MBR instead of GPT.
> You have enough spare space! :-o
>

See if this would be simpler.  I bought the 1tbSSD (/dev/sdd) to replace 
the 250 gig ssd (/dev/sde). To be the new root filesystem with grub.

What would I need to do change the root filesystem from /dev/sde (250gig 
SSD) to /dev/sdd (1tb SSD) and put grub on /dev/sdd.  the 1tb SSD is empty.

and the 14tb drive (/dev/sdb) as my home directory.

The rest can go away.  This machine has had many instances of Ubuntu on 
it over the years.  And started as Windows XP!