[ubuntu-za] Problems with fstab

Wed Jun 17 17:48:58 UTC 2020

Hi sorry it took so long to come back to you. it should be good to check
what you can get on gparted, but the boot-repair  utility should handle
that... it should be safe to try doing it on your working install, though
having it preinstalled on a live disk should simpl

On Tue, 16 Jun 2020 at 16:52, Bill Cairns <cairnsww at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks for your reply Frans,
>
> I did a file check - no problems found.
> I did a reformat when I re-installed - although to be honest I am not sure
> on which partitions!
> I used the installer to resize my partitions. I think that is a version of
> gparted?
>
> How do I go about doing a boot repair? Should I use the utility boot
> repairer  (There is a good write up at
> https://www.fosslinux.com/1521/boot-repair-for-ubuntu-linux-mint-and-elementary-os-can-fix-bootloader-issues.htm.)
> Can I just install that on my system (it's running well after all) and
> write in to sdb1? Must I use gparted first to set the boot flag?
>
> We seem to be running into dangerous territory here so I would like to be
> careful. I do have backups but I know that it is easy to forget something.
>
> Bill
>
> On Mon, 15 Jun 2020 at 21:17, Frans de waal <meesterarend at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Boot option 1 defenitely is the hdd, wich you want to mount as /home.
>> Usually also listed as sda1... Therefore the uid identifiers for the
>> partitions...
>>
>> I'm thinking maybe boot from a live disk and check the files on each disk.
>>
>>  Whenever I reinstall for what ever reason, I clean all but the home
>> folder on the disk and keep only what I need there.
>> You can also use gparted to set the boot flag and resize partitions as
>> needed.
>>
>> Anyway the best would be to backup all data you need, before doing too
>> much...
>>
>> I've also seen the boot repair option on  the current beta version linux
>> mint cinnamon disk, wich is also an option to help fix boot problems.
>>
>>
>> On Mon, 15 Jun 2020, 20:15 Bill Cairns <cairnsww at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Sorry - that question came out backwards. I mean how can I get the right
>>> boot program onto the SSD disk for BIOS.
>>>
>>> On Mon, 15 Jun 2020 at 16:49, Bill Cairns <cairnsww at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hello Bruce and others,
>>>>
>>>> Thanks for your responses so far. I suspect that Bruce is pointing me
>>>> in the right direction. After the install, I had a lot of trouble getting
>>>> the machine to boot. I am not sure how to relate the disks described by the
>>>> BIOS setup to the disks that I have partitioned.
>>>>
>>>> I have Gigabyte UEFI DualBios 2011.
>>>>
>>>> My boot option 1 is 'SATA PM: ST31000524AS'
>>>> (This works)
>>>> Boot option 2 is 'SATA PM: ATAPI iHAS122 C'
>>>> (When I select this, it just sits there spinning a little wheel at me.)
>>>> Boot option 3 is 'Realtex PXE B03 D00' (I understand that has something
>>>> to do with 'boot from LAN?)
>>>>
>>>> My other options would be:
>>>> 'ubuntu'
>>>> (The same wheel spinning)
>>>> 'UEFI TEAM5Lite3D120G' (Which I presume is the SSD?)
>>>> (When I select this, I get 'Media test failure, check cable
>>>> Reboot and select proper Boot device.)
>>>>
>>>> You (Bruce) say: 'I think you might be booting from /dev/sda1 in MBR
>>>> mode which has it's own /etc/fstab and is trying to mount a non
>>>> existent/faulty root partition. The emergency error normally comes from
>>>> /boot/initrd.img (InitRAMFS) if it is unable to hand off to the init system
>>>> on disk (systemd).'
>>>>
>>>> But it does mount and run the correct root partition. It goes wrong
>>>> when fstab tells it to mount /home.
>>>>
>>>> How do I go about getting bios loaded onto the SSD?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks for the help so far. I am learning a lot even if I am not fixing
>>>> the problem.
>>>>
>>>> BIll
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, 15 Jun 2020 at 16:11, Bill Cairns <cairnsww at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Thanks Bruce - I need to reboot to have a look at that and will come
>>>>> back on my other machine.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Mon, 15 Jun 2020 at 15:57, Bruce Pieterse <dev at santura.co.za>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi Bill,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks, just wanted to make sure the obvious was covered. I think
>>>>>> Wesley and Frans was on to something earlier.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Three things I want to mention:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 1. As mentioned by Wesley earlier in the thread, please make sure the
>>>>>> BIOS is using the SSD root filesystem when booting (/dev/sdb1) and is set
>>>>>> to UEFI mode. Generally this is marked as UEFI: ubuntu in the BIOS but can
>>>>>> possibly vary depending on the BIOS. I think you might be booting from
>>>>>> /dev/sda1 in MBR mode which has it's own /etc/fstab and is trying to mount
>>>>>> a non existent/faulty root partition. The emergency error normally comes
>>>>>> from /boot/initrd.img (InitRAMFS) if it is unable to hand off to the init
>>>>>> system on disk (systemd).
>>>>>> 2. You have a swap partition with UUID
>>>>>> 1c5e43a0-097c-4d68-90df-e544497323dd enabled in /etc/fstab, but that
>>>>>> partition doesn't exist in the output of *sudo blkid*. You can
>>>>>> comment that line out for now. You can use a swap file instead and can be
>>>>>> setup after you get this fixed.
>>>>>> 3. The entry in /etc/fstab is correct, but I think the problem is
>>>>>> point 1.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Best approach is to completely, disconnect the the old hard drive and
>>>>>> only have the SSD in and then setup the BIOS correctly, then reboot into
>>>>>> Ubuntu. If everything is OK, shut-down, reconnect your old hard drive and
>>>>>> boot up again.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Absolutely last resort or another alternative is to rsync your /home
>>>>>> directory from /dev/sda6 to another disk (rsync -avu /mnt/old-home/
>>>>>> /mnt/tmp-home), format /dev/sda with just 1 ext4 partition, mount it, then
>>>>>> rsync the contents back to the drive. This will ensure that this is no MBR
>>>>>> on /dev/sda and is only used for /home.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Let us know how it goes.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Mon, 2020-06-15 at 12:51 +0200, Bill Cairns wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi Bruce,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I got 'command udo not found' until I copied it right!
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Here you are:
>>>>>> /dev/sdb2: UUID="2e740efb-b15b-4bea-9ef8-a20dd7a87186" TYPE="ext4"
>>>>>> PARTUUID="2d6e92df-4f61-489d-b490-b7494b2dac37"
>>>>>> /dev/sda1: UUID="ea22080c-4fda-44a2-9823-b51cef829ada" TYPE="ext4"
>>>>>> PARTUUID="00023991-01"
>>>>>> /dev/sda6: UUID="b7092661-c008-4beb-9cdc-06c3dd036181" TYPE="ext4"
>>>>>> PARTUUID="00023991-06"
>>>>>> /dev/sdb1: UUID="B9BC-946C" TYPE="vfat" PARTLABEL="EFI System
>>>>>> Partition" PARTUUID="26461b51-7dde-415d-bc0b-f8c93d1606a7"
>>>>>> /dev/sdc1: LABEL="Transcend" UUID="60CC093DCC090F4A" TYPE="ntfs"
>>>>>> PARTUUID="f2d4863e-01"
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>>   Bill
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Mon, 15 Jun 2020 at 11:06, Bruce Pieterse <dev at santura.co.za>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi Bill,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Please can you provide the output of *sudo blkid | grep
>>>>>> "ext\|vfat\|ntfs" * to get a better understanding of your disks and
>>>>>> partitions.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Mon, 2020-06-15 at 09:42 +0200, Bill Cairns wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi Wesley,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks for your reply.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I hope that I am talking sense here. (I am sometimes not sure that I
>>>>>> am using the right terminology.) Going back in time, I started with only
>>>>>> the hard disk which is now sda. I had boot, the OS, and everything else on
>>>>>> it. Then after a couple of years I added the ssd - now sba. Now I have
>>>>>> installed the OS on the ssd, but I still boot from my hard drive. (That is,
>>>>>> when I did the install, I specified '/' as being on sb2.) It seems to work
>>>>>> very well except for this problem of not being able to use fstab to specify
>>>>>> where /home is.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> At the moment, I am manually mounting /home after startup. Again, it
>>>>>> all works well except that I have two /home directories - one on the ssd
>>>>>> and the one that I use.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Bill
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Mon, 15 Jun 2020 at 02:17, Wesley Werner <wesley.werner at gmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi Bill
>>>>>>
>>>>>> You said the boot drive is sda1, but your SSD disk lists as sdb2
>>>>>> (UUID=2e740efb). Perhaps the BIOS is booting the wrong drive?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Regards
>>>>>> Wesley Werner
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Mon, Jun 15, 2020 at 1:03 AM Bill Cairns <cairnsww at gmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I tried looking at the drive before mounting it as /home and this is
>>>>>> what it looks like with mount -v (I asked nautilus to mount the '960 Gb
>>>>>> drive')
>>>>>> /dev/sda6 on /media/bill/b7092661-c008-4beb-9cdc-06c3dd036181 type
>>>>>> ext4 (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,uhelper=udisks2)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I can access it quite happily that way too.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Sun, 14 Jun 2020 at 16:19, Bill Cairns <cairnsww at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks for your reply Paolo. I confess that I am not quite sure what
>>>>>> I should be looking for. The mount -v gives me:
>>>>>> /dev/sda6 on /home type ext4 (rw,relatime)
>>>>>> While /proc/mounts has
>>>>>> /dev/sda6 /home ext4 rw,relatime 0 0
>>>>>>
>>>>>> That would seem the same, but I am not sure I am looking at the right
>>>>>> things.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This is the ssd with the OS from mount -v:
>>>>>> /dev/sdb2 on / type ext4 (rw,noatime,errors=remount-ro)
>>>>>> and from /proc/mounts:
>>>>>> /dev/sdb2 / ext4 rw,noatime,errors=remount-ro 0 0
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Sat, 13 Jun 2020 at 22:34, Paolo Gigante <
>>>>>> paolo.gigante.sa at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Not that it should cause a crash but are you sure its an ext4
>>>>>> filesystem on that device?
>>>>>> If the mount command works, you may want to try 'mount -v' to see
>>>>>> what mount is actually doing. Once you have used the mount command to
>>>>>> attach the FS, does the entry look like in /proc/mounts
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Sat, Jun 13, 2020 at 2:38 PM Bill Cairns <cairnsww at gmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Boot is on the hard drive - sda1
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Sat, 13 Jun 2020 at 15:30, Frans de waal <meesterarend at gmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Just a thought... What is the boot drive in the bios?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Sat, 13 Jun 2020 at 15:10, Bill Cairns <cairnsww at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hello everybody,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I am trying to run 20.04 with my OS on an SSD device and my home
>>>>>> directory on my old hard drive.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This mount command works perfectly:
>>>>>> sudo mount UUID=b7092661-c008-4beb-9cdc-06c3dd036181 /home
>>>>>>
>>>>>> However, when I try to do the same thing in fstab -
>>>>>> # /etc/fstab: static file system information.
>>>>>> #
>>>>>> # Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
>>>>>> # device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name
>>>>>> devices
>>>>>> # that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
>>>>>> #
>>>>>> # <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
>>>>>> # / was on /dev/sdb2 during installation
>>>>>> UUID=2e740efb-b15b-4bea-9ef8-a20dd7a87186 /         ext4
>>>>>>  noatime,errors=remount-ro 0       1
>>>>>> # swap was on /dev/sda5 during installation
>>>>>> UUID=1c5e43a0-097c-4d68-90df-e544497323dd none            swap    sw
>>>>>>              0       0
>>>>>> #
>>>>>> # Home is on sda6. Added 2020-06-13
>>>>>> #
>>>>>> UUID=b7092661-c008-4beb-9cdc-06c3dd036181 /home ext4
>>>>>> nodev,nosuid,relatime  0  2
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The system crashes rather badly and says 'You are now in emergency
>>>>>> mode' or something equivalent. (And I have no idea how to do anything in
>>>>>> emergency mode!)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I have used the example in https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Fstab
>>>>>> (changing the UUID of course).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I am sure that I am missing something very simple. Can anyone help
>>>>>> please?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks, keep safe,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Bill
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> ubuntu-za mailing list
>>>>>> ubuntu-za at lists.ubuntu.com
>>>>>> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-za
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> ubuntu-za mailing list
>>>>>> ubuntu-za at lists.ubuntu.com
>>>>>> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-za
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> ubuntu-za mailing list
>>>>>> ubuntu-za at lists.ubuntu.com
>>>>>> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-za
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> ubuntu-za mailing list
>>>>>> ubuntu-za at lists.ubuntu.com
>>>>>> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-za
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> ubuntu-za mailing list
>>>>>> ubuntu-za at lists.ubuntu.com
>>>>>> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-za
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Support the GNU in GNU/Linux: https://my.fsf.org/join?referrer=184942
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Support the GNU in GNU/Linux: https://my.fsf.org/join?referrer=184942
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> ubuntu-za mailing list
>>>>>> ubuntu-za at lists.ubuntu.com
>>>>>> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-za
>>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>> ubuntu-za mailing list
>>> ubuntu-za at lists.ubuntu.com
>>> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-za
>>>
>> --
>> ubuntu-za mailing list
>> ubuntu-za at lists.ubuntu.com
>> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-za
>>
> --
> ubuntu-za mailing list
> ubuntu-za at lists.ubuntu.com
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-za
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-za/attachments/20200617/604b92a6/attachment-0001.html>