Install failure - LMDE 64-bit [SOLVED]

[runbei]

At some point, I'll clean up this mess - but will leave it as-is for now, in case it helps someone with the problem of LMDE not recognizing the /home partition when both SATA and IDE drives are present in the system.

[LATER:] As described under #1 below, I reinstalled LMDE 64 and now it doesn't seem to have any problems at boot from errors caused by looking for partitions that were formerly on the IDE disk. So far, I am able to boot normally. So I will mark this solved again tentatively.

[EVEN LATER:] I really should re-title this issue: "Why does LMDE 64 hate my second IDE hard drive?" The problem of losing the desktop and MintMenu DID recur at the next boot. Why? - I have no idea. I once again get the message during boot: "Mounting local filesystems... mount: special device /dev/sda4 does not exist." (sda4 is my /home partition). When I disconnect the IDE drive, LMDE boots normally. I have seen mention of Debian having problems with mixed SATA and PATA (IDE) drives. I guess this is one of them. I'm speculating that the solution is to change some spec so that LMDE recognizes the IDE drive properly at boot, which I don't know how to do (but will search for a solution in the Debian world). Though I can't imagine why the presence of an IDE drive prevents LMDE from finding /dev/sda4, which is my /home partition. OKAY, my solution was to replace the IDE drive with a SATA drive, probably overdue anyway.

[LATER STILL:] A search on the Debian forums for .ICEauthority (part of the error messages described below) hints that this particular error may have something to do with sound settings. But then, it also turns up the usual 40-acre rabbit warren of side issues, diversions, distractions, and airy speculation. Linux is wonderful once everything's running smoothly.

1. Upon first boot after repartitioning the second (IDE) drive in this PC I had the error messages described below once again (.ICEauthority...etc.). Hm, an external USB hard drive was attached and running, but I don't think that could have caused the problem.

Anyway, I booted again and the desktop and MintMenu came up, but all my settings re monitors, desktop icons, etc. were gone - looked like it did after a first boot of a freshly installed LMDE with the old, un-re-partitioned/formatted IDE drive.

I noticed during startup a message: "Mounting local filesystems... mount: special device /dev/sda4 does not exist." I reckon LMDE was looking for a partition that formerly existed on the IDE drive, before I repartitioned and reformatted it as described in the "NOTE:" below. Wonder if that's what threw LMDE off balance. As we speak, I'm re-installing LMDE fresh now that the IDE drive is in fresh clean condition with no old Linux partitions anymore. Hm, but given success described under "NOTE:", I'm confused. Anyway, will proceed with the reinstall.

2. [NOTE: This issue was SOLVED step by step. First by disconnecting the IDE (PATA) hard drive during installation of LMDE 64. The installation thereafter went fine, and on re-boot after install, the MintMenu and desktop were loaded properly. However, when the IDE drive was re-connected and the computer was re-booted, the problem described below appeared - boot disk not detected, no MintMenu, no desktop. The solution was to back up the IDE drive, repartition it with a single NTFS partition (it is my Windows/Linux data disk), and format it. After I did that, I was able to boot into the LMDE 64 desktop normally, with no error messages and the MintMenu nicely in place. Hurrah.]

I received the following messages in this sequence after installing LMDE 64 201012 on a home-built PC with Biostar 790GA A2+ motherboard, AMD Phenom 9850 4-core, and 4 GB RAM:

Could not update .ICEauthority file /home/runbei/.ICEauthority

There is a problem with the configuration server (/usr/lib/libgconf-2-4/gconf-sanity-check2 exited with status 256)

The panel encountered a problem while loading "0AFIID:6x10ME_MintMenu". Do you want to delete the applet from your configuration?

(Problem recurs on reboot whether I choose Delete or Don't Delete.)

Nautilus could not create the following required folders: /home/runbei/Desktop, /home/runbei/.nautilus. Please create these folders, or set permissions such that nautilus can create them.

Obviously, there's no MintMenu or Desktop at install. I'll be trying LMDE 32 on the same machine. It installed normally on my laptop, a ThinkPad X32, although (like all Debian-based distros), suspend to RAM does not work - it leaves the backlight on and freezes on resume. (FWIW, OpenSUSE and Scientific Linux both handle suspend flawlessly.)

Still looking for a very stable rolling distro to use on that machine. It clearly isn't Debian (too techie for me), Mepis (too much manual mangling required to set up Nvidia drivers, etc., with poor documentation), or LMDE 64 (yet). But given what's been done with Mint in the past I'm highly optimistic that one of these days I'll have LMDE 64 running smoothly (tracking Stable) with Windows in Virtualbox and, $ allowing, 8 GB of RAM.

[willie42]

check the MD5. Might need to reburn another copy. ICE Authority is a hidden file on the Home Partition. its some kind of security file.

[runbei]

Sounds like a plan - hope that's all it is. Would really like to get LMDE 64 running on that machine.

[willie42]

Just burn it slow and let us know how things work out or come back if you have more issue and there will be some help here

[runbei]

Right you are - the md5 checksums didn't match. Will download again, burn slowly as recommended, try again, and report back. Thanks again.

[rdonnelly]

Did you try chown in recovery mode? I have my home on a separate partition and I get that error every time I install.

Examples:
chown root /u Change the owner of /u to "root".
chown root:staff /u Likewise, but also change its group to "staff".
chown -hR root /u Change the owner of /u and subfiles to "root".

try:

Code: Select all

su
password:
chown -hR youname /home/nameofhome

replace yourname with your login name and nameofhome with the name you gave your home.

[runbei]

Thanks. I downloaded the ISO again, MD5 matched, got the same messages on boot. Will try the recovery mode remedy, later. Good to know you've been able to work around this.

[runbei]

I may have found another hint. When I try booting in recovery mood it doesn't recognize my home partition. The partitions I have are:

1. A Windows partition
2. An install of Mint Julia 64 with 2 primary partitions, swap temporarily absent, deleted and used to create...
3. An extended partition created to test the install of LMDE 64; it has 3 virtual partitions for /, swap, and home.

The home partition is /dev/sda7. On boot the following message appears:

Mounting local filesystems...mount: special device /dev/sda7 does not exist
failed

Not sure the fact I'm using an extended partition + virtual partitions matters, as I get exactly the same errors when I install LMDE 64 to 3 primary partitions.

[runbei]

p.s. I wonder if part of the problem is that I have one SATA hard disk which I use for Windows and Linux installs, and an older PATA/IDE disk that I use for data. I've heard this can cause problems for Debian-based distros. ? I'm vaguely aware that in the past sometimes the sda and sdb designations seem to be reversed depending on what program is looking at the disk (gparted, installers, etc.).

Just for the heck of it, I'll replace the 64-bit install with 32-bit LMDE and see what happens. [Later:] Ah, so. The 32-bit installer doesn't let me choose the sdb disk for installation. So much for that.

[Later:] Just to include this in the record in case it helps the developers at the next LMDE go-round: I deleted the extended partition where LMDE 64 was installed. I then tried to install it in primary partitions, to see if LMDE could find my /home folder there. But I was unable to do that because the LMDE 64 installed couldn't see my SATA disk (sda) where I install operating systems. Funny, it was able to see the disk when I installed on an extended partition. Same error as LMDE 32, which also can't see that SATA disk.

My solution for now is to go with Mint Julia until LMDE matures a bit. LMDE will have great value for me once the edges are smoother.

[NiksaVel]

Hey guys,

I have EXACTLY the same problem... (and everything worked well with my previous Helena install on this comp).

The comp is athlon amd64 3800+ /w 1gb ram ... I use it as 24/7 home file server and for some basic desktop usage...

the storage device setup (I believe here is the problem, and it sounds "kernelish")

2x IDE dvd (reader and burner)
1x IDE PATA hdd (for / and /home and a ntfs for winXP dual boot partition)
3x SATA hdd (purely for storage, mounted inside /home directory)

the problem I have is the same - soon after GRUB I get the message that /dev/sda5 (this is /home partition) is not present and the option to enter recovery or ctrl+d to continue.

If I continue I get the same msg about .ICEauthority and am greeted with the standard welcome splash for new installs (I guess this is normal since there is no /home)...


WORKAROUND: I just enter the root pass to enter recovery, tell the comp to shutdown and power off and turn it on again. This time it finds everything alright and works 100% until next shutdown where I simply repeat this procedure... Smells like something wrong with timing in populating /dev... but I am not nowhere close technical enough to actually troubleshoot this...



I am on a 32-bit LMDE