Fdisk Woes [solved]

hlorrithi · n00b Joined: 07 Oct 2005 Posts: 7

Hey all,

I appear to have gotten myself into a major pickle trying to install Gentoo on my IBM Thinkpad T43p.

Specifically, the problem has occured with Fdisk. I attempted to create disk partitions after my three Windows XP partitions... Actually, they were typed sda1 "Unknown", sda2 "Unknown" sda3 "Novell". The fourth partition was free space. So I attempted to delete the free space, and use it. Fdisk guided me into making an sda4 partition in the type "extended" that took up all the space, which seemed counterintuitive, but I went along with it. Then it would let me partition the same space that sda4 occupied with a swap partition, and a root partition.

So essentially, I have a partition set, besides the three windows partitions that look something like this:

sda4, 10 Gigs, Blocks 1-8423
sda5, 512 Megs, Blocks 1-63
sda6, 9.5 Gigs, Blocks 64-8423

Where 1-8423 are the blocks of free space outside of the windows partitions.

Well, I tried to write the new partition scheme, and it came up with an error. Supposedly the current system was running off of the "old" partition scheme, and the new partition scheme would take over upon reboot.

So I rebooted.

Problem was, the hard drive will not boot anymore. Pushed the boot device selector button, and the hard drive is now said to be in IDE5, where it used to be in IDE1.

Please help. What did I do wrong, and what can I do to fix it? I have checked out several faqs, and it looks like I should have been able to create three straight Linux partitions (two type 83, one type 82) without having to create that "extended" partition. What happened?

If anyone can shed light on this for me, I would be oh so gleeful and happy.

-----------Hlorrithi

syg00 · Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2005 1:23 am Post subject: Re: Fdisk Woes

hlorrithi · n00b Joined: 07 Oct 2005 Posts: 7

Hey Syg,

Since I last posted, I made an effort to rescue files from my windows partition. Namely, I installed ubuntu, and accessed the windows partition from there. Then I moved my files to my mac from a flash drive. They appear to be ok. If I can get my windows partition to run again though, that would save me a lot of grief. Also, I would really like to give Gentoo another shot. Anyway, here is what the error says when I try to write an fdisk change:

The Partition table has been altered!

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.

WARNING: Re-reading the partition table failed with error 22: invalid argument.
The kernel still uses the old table.
The new table will be used at the next reboot.
Syncing disks.

That was when I rebooted.

Now, when I run fdisk -l, this is what I get :

/dev/sda1 * 1 8424 676621968+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary
/dev/sda2 8424 9671 10016527+ 83 LINUX
/dev/sda3 9672 9729 465885 5 EXTENDED
/dev/sda5 9672 9729 465853 82 LINUX SWAP/SOLARIS

The linux partition on this scheme has ubuntu installed on it currently.

fdisk still gives that error I mentioned above if I try to write a change.

Finally, this may tell you something about why my windows won't boot. Ubuntu Grub loads fine. Red Hat's grub failed to load at all (after a full install of red hat). If I try to grub into Windows XP (from ubuntu grub), this is what shows up on the screen.

root (hd0,0)
Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x7
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +1

I feel like there must be something fairly simple that can fix this... Everything on the windows partition is still intact, after all.

Thanks for you help! Your knowledge of the Dos partitioning scheme has been very enlightening.

--------Hlorrithi

hlorrithi · n00b Joined: 07 Oct 2005 Posts: 7

Nobody knows what is wrong here? Nobody knows how to fix it?

darn...

-------Hlorrithi

nixnut · Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2005 7:18 pm Post subject:

Post your grub.conf
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hlorrithi · n00b Joined: 07 Oct 2005 Posts: 7

On the note of Grub.conf, Ubuntu apparently uses menu.lst instead, which is in /boot/grub.

Here is what it has at the end of the file, where grub.conf relevant information is kept :

## ## End Default Options ## ##

title Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.10-5.386
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-5-386 root=/dev/sda2 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/intitrd.img-2.6.10-5-386
savedefault
boot

title Ubuntu, kernel memtest 86+
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/memtest86+.bin
savedefault
boot

### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST

# This is a divider, added to separate the menu items below from the Debian
# ones.
title Microsoft Windows XP Professional
root (hd0,0)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +1

So that's it. Funny how Ubuntu adds in all those lines that the computer ignores, but sometimes help a novice like myself understand what is going on... So, as you can see... the computer recognizes a Windows operating system, but it will not boot it for some reason... Does this help?

-------------Hlorrithi

nixnut · Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2005 9:26 pm Post subject:

Try this;

syg00 · Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2005 9:31 pm Post subject:

Erk !!!.
(re-)installing software - especiallly whole operating system environment(s) - to a potentially suspect disk isn't likely to help. In future, try to leave the disk "as-is", and work to copy the data off it before doing *any* updates to it.
This is exactly what things like Knoppix were designed for - has all the tools you'll need, has fantastic hardware detection, and runs entirely from the CD. Never updates the disk - in fact mounts all disk partitions as read-only.
Grab a copy and keep it near at all times.

Enough of the sermon. The XP boot problem should be easy to fix; the

hlorrithi · n00b Joined: 07 Oct 2005 Posts: 7

Well, it was a nice try...

Now when booting Windows, the screen reads :

Booting 'Microsoft Windows XP Professional'

rootnoverify (hd0,0)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +1

I tried it a moment later using the chainloader line from nixnut's post :

rootnoverify (hd0,0)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader (hd0,0)+1

And without the two lines in the middle, it does the same thing again.

So it looks like it is just spitting these lines right back at me... what does that mean?

And about the potentially suspect disk... are you saying there might have been something wrong with my hard disk to begin with? Maybe something that would cause fdisk to screw up my partition scheme?

And yes sir! I am downloading Knoppix as we speak.

----------------Hlorrithi

hlorrithi · n00b Joined: 07 Oct 2005 Posts: 7

Hey all,

It turns out that fdisk came up with that error, because it had misread the partition scheme. then it tried to change the scheme, which resulted in some wonky convoluted result in the Master boot record.

The solution was to do a windows restore and start over. Gentoo is compiling KDE as we speak, which is a relief to me, and my software is still intact in the windows partition. (yay!)

Thanks for your inputs. I really appreciate all the help you guys gave me. I learned a ton!

------------Hlorrithi

syg00 · Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2005 10:36 am Post subject:

I had intended to suggest you try a "fixmbr". Go side-tracked over the weekend building another system.

I hope you didn't really do a restore of the system - probably the fixmbr would have sufficed.

hlorrithi · n00b Joined: 07 Oct 2005 Posts: 7

Well, we did do a fixmbr... but the guy running the install cd (because I apparently am not allowed to own my own copy of the Windows install cd... bleh!) seemed to run a few other things too... I'm happy at any rate... Windows runs, and everything is working... And to boot, I've got the coolest running KDE desktop I have ever had the pleasure of playing with. The kde that comes with gentoo is alot more complete, it looks like, than red hat's version.

Very Pleased... -------------Hlorrithi