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Re: How do I stop PC booting the wrong partition ?
Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2014 12:39 am
by ron_h
I didn't realise I could use Gparted when I went looking for partition clone/copy software, I assume it would need to be Gparted from a Live medium ? Since Clonezilla website made very clear you can only clone to a partition of equal (or greater) size, it seemed like a good idea to make the partitions of identical size.
Ron
Re: How do I stop PC booting the wrong partition ?
Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2014 12:44 am
by ron_h
OK, done that, it's still wrong.
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grep vmlin /boot//grub/grub.cfg
linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.11-2-amd64 root=UUID=c456e7bd-e79e-496c-93a1-5c522359fdaa ro quiet splash
linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.11-2-amd64 root=UUID=c456e7bd-e79e-496c-93a1-5c522359fdaa ro single
linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.11-2-amd64 root=UUID=c456e7bd-e79e-496c-93a1-5c522359fdaa ro quiet splash
linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.11-2-amd64 root=UUID=c456e7bd-e79e-496c-93a1-5c522359fdaa ro single
Ron
Re: How do I stop PC booting the wrong partition ?
Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2014 1:13 am
by Spearmint2
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cat /boot/grub/grub.cfg |grep UUID; sudo blkid & sudo fdisk -l & sudo parted -l
copy and paste into terminal and run. Post results. It's past 1am so I may not be back till tomorrow to see it.
for a bit of twist on yours, try this instead;
Re: How do I stop PC booting the wrong partition ?
Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2014 1:22 am
by WharfRat
From the same place
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egrep '^UUID|^/dev' /mnt/etc/fstab
Just paste back the grep results.
Re: How do I stop PC booting the wrong partition ?
Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2014 1:32 am
by ron_h
Looks like I stuffed up the other day ....
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sudo -i
[sudo] password for ron:
baby-2 ~ # mount /dev/sda8 /mnt
baby-2 ~ # egrep '^UUID|^/dev' /mnt/etc/fstab
UUID=newuuidhere / ext4 rw,errors=remount-ro 0 1
UUID=afc6dcda-65ea-446d-9c95-4d355a03debc swap swap sw 0 0
baby-2 ~ # umount -l /dev/sda8
baby-2 ~ # exit
logout
That 'newuuidhere' shouldn't be there ... i remember I got that command wrong when I first tried it
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sed -i.bak 's/c456e7bd-e79e-496c-93a1-5c522359fdaa/newuuidhere/1' /etc/fstab
So I reran it ... and it looks like that wasn't good enough
Ron
Re: How do I stop PC booting the wrong partition ?
Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2014 8:23 am
by WharfRat
ron_h wrote:Looks like I stuffed up the other day ....
Yup
I was always under the impression that grub used blkid or tune2fs to retrieve the UUID for the partition, but now I see it doesn't.
ron_h wrote:So I reran it ... and it looks like that wasn't good enough
It's a good thing nothing happened given the substitution string wasn't there otherwise you would have messed up the sda6 system.
Get back to where you were before, meaning boot and open the terminal
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sed -i.bak 's/newuuidhere/015fac40-f127-11e3-ad5a-2b2b889acdff/1' /mnt/etc/fstab
Double check that the substitution worked and if so update grub
Then check the grub.cfg file
That should do it.
Re: How do I stop PC booting the wrong partition ?
Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2014 6:30 pm
by ron_h
Sadly, no
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ron@baby-2 ~ $ sudo -i
[sudo] password for ron:
baby-2 ~ # mount /dev/sda8 /mnt
baby-2 ~ # sed -i.bak 's/newuuidhere/015fac40-f127-11e3-ad5a-2b2b889acdff/1' /mnt/etc/fstab
baby-2 ~ # grep 2b2b889acdff /mnt/etc/fstab
UUID=015fac40-f127-11e3-ad5a-2b2b889acdff / ext4 rw,errors=remount-ro 0 1
baby-2 ~ # /usr/sbin/update-grub
Generating grub.cfg ...
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.11-2-amd64
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.11-2-amd64
No volume groups found
Found Windows Recovery Environment (loader) on /dev/sda1
Found Windows 7 (loader) on /dev/sda3
Found LMDE Cinnamon Edition (1) on /dev/sda8
done
[127]baby-2 ~ # grep vmlin /boot//grub/grub.cfg
linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.11-2-amd64 root=UUID=c456e7bd-e79e-496c-93a1-5c522359fdaa ro quiet splash
linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.11-2-amd64 root=UUID=c456e7bd-e79e-496c-93a1-5c522359fdaa ro single
linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.11-2-amd64 root=UUID=c456e7bd-e79e-496c-93a1-5c522359fdaa ro quiet splash
linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.11-2-amd64 root=UUID=c456e7bd-e79e-496c-93a1-5c522359fdaa ro single
Ron
Re: How do I stop PC booting the wrong partition ?
Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2014 7:18 pm
by ron_h
It seems to me that using Clonezilla to create a clone on a partition on the same hard drive was not a good decision on my part. Even if this thread ends up SOLVED, I won't be doing things the same way ever again. So I'm starting a new thread to detemine how I should have done it
Ron
Re: How do I stop PC booting the wrong partition ?
Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2014 7:21 pm
by WharfRat
ron_h wrote:It seems to me that using Clonexzilla to create a clone on a partition on the same hard drive was not a good decision on my part. Even if this thread ends up SOLVED, I won't be doing things the same way ever again. So I'm starting a new thread to detemine how I should have done it
Ron
Mount the partition or make sure it's mounted and
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cat /mnt/boot/grub/i386-pc/load.cfg
Re: How do I stop PC booting the wrong partition ?
Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 12:46 am
by ron_h
sda6 is mounted, it's the running system. I also mounted sda8
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ron@baby-2 ~ $ cat /mnt/boot/grub/i386-pc/load.cfg
cat: /mnt/boot/grub/i386-pc/load.cfg: No such file or directory
The only subdirectory in /mnt/boot/grub is /locale, and there is no load.cfg file in /mnt/boot/grub or in /mnt/boot/grub/locale
Ron
Re: How do I stop PC booting the wrong partition ?
Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 1:49 am
by ron_h
I can't find load.cfg at all
Ron
Re: How do I stop PC booting the wrong partition ?
Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 8:38 am
by WharfRat
ron_h wrote:I can't find load.cfg at all
Ron
Well, that's strange. If this is a clone of sda6 then it should be there. I've never touched that file, even when I rsync clone my running system to a flash and the flash to another computer.
Lets just manually adjust grub and see if it boots. Use your text editor to change the UUID entry in grub.cfg. Just make a copy first.
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sudo cp -a /boot/grub/grub.cfg /boot/grub/grub.cfg.bak
I forget if mentioned your desktop or not, but your editor is either pluma, gedit or kate/ So
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sudo youreditor /boot/grub/grub.cfg&
Change the UUID's for the last two vmlinuz lines with sda8's to read:
linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.11-2-amd64 root=UUID=015fac40-f127-11e3-ad5a-2b2b889acdff ro quiet splash
linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.11-2-amd64 root=UUID=015fac40-f127-11e3-ad5a-2b2b889acdff ro single
Save the file and reboot.
Re: How do I stop PC booting the wrong partition ?
Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 9:47 pm
by ron_h
I made the backup then started gedit (I'm using Cinnamon) for grub.cfg. In your example code, do I have to specify the & that is at the end of the file ID ?
I have NOT yet made the changes. This is what I see for entries 5 and 6 in the grub menu, which do indeed boot the wrong partition !
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menuentry "LMDE Cinnamon 64-bit, 3.11-2-amd64 (/dev/sda6) (on /dev/sda8)" --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
insmod part_msdos
insmod ext2
set root='(hd0,msdos8)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 015fac40-f127-11e3-ad5a-2b2b889acdff
linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.11-2-amd64 root=UUID=c456e7bd-e79e-496c-93a1-5c522359fdaa ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.11-2-amd64
}
menuentry "LMDE Cinnamon 64-bit, 3.11-2-amd64 (/dev/sda6) -- (recovery mode) (on /dev/sda8)" --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
insmod part_msdos
insmod ext2
set root='(hd0,msdos8)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 015fac40-f127-11e3-ad5a-2b2b889acdff
linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.11-2-amd64 root=UUID=c456e7bd-e79e-496c-93a1-5c522359fdaa ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.11-2-amd64
For the entries 1 & 2 in the menu, all UUID references are to the sda6 UUID
Re: How do I stop PC booting the wrong partition ?
Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 10:29 pm
by WharfRat
do I have to specify the & that is at the end of the file ID ?
No, but if you do it will put the editor in the background freeing-up the terminal in case you need to get into it.
You can change the menu options to
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menuentry "LMDE Cinnamon 64-bit, 3.11-2-amd64 on /dev/sda8)" --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
menuentry "LMDE Cinnamon 64-bit, 3.11-2-amd64 recovery mode (on /dev/sda8)" --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
and the kernel lines to
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linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.11-2-amd64 root=UUID=015fac40-f127-11e3-ad5a-2b2b889acdff ro quiet splash
linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.11-2-amd64 root=UUID=015fac40-f127-11e3-ad5a-2b2b889acdff ro single
You can just copy and paste the lines.
Re: How do I stop PC booting the wrong partition ?
Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2014 3:42 am
by ron_h
Many thanks again. I did copy/paste the lines, although I changed LMDE to LMDETEST which looks better (to my eyes) in the GRUB menu.
I confirm that I can now boot to the LMDE system or the LMDETEST system, which is what I started this thread for.
As long as I don't run update-grub or grub-mkconfig, or install another system in a different partition, I assume grub.cfg will remain unchanged. However, if I do any of those things, would I be right to assume that grub.cfg will become incorrect again with respect to sda8 ? If so, then I think I need to reinstall LMDETEST but not by a cloning method, rather by a filesystem copy method such as fsarchiver. That however is a whole different exercise, beyond the scope of this thread.
Ron
Re: How do I stop PC booting the wrong partition ?
Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2014 8:53 am
by WharfRat
ron_h wrote:As long as I don't run update-grub or grub-mkconfig, or install another system in a different partition, I assume grub.cfg will remain unchanged. However, if I do any of those things, would I be right to assume that grub.cfg will become incorrect again with respect to sda8 ? If so, then I think I need to reinstall LMDETEST but not by a cloning method, rather by a filesystem copy method such as fsarchiver. That however is a whole different exercise, beyond the scope of this thread.
Ron
It appears likely that an update to the kernel or initrd will mess up the grub file again. You can check with
It will dump the new menu to the screen so you can take a look at it.
You can always save the grub file and just copy it back with changes to the kernel and initrd versions to reflect the new entries. I use symlink references in grub so I don't have to modify the grub file, just adjust the symlinks in /boot.
Also since this is LMDE and not the main edition, you might want to try posting your experience to the LMDE forum. Maybe there's a grub bug with this edition.
I've cloned my running system to a flash drive using rsync several times, chrooted and made the same modifications I had you do without any problems.
Whatever you decide to do good luck with it
Re: How do I stop PC booting the wrong partition ?
Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2014 10:39 am
by austin.texas
Boot into Mint on sda6 and edit the /etc/fstab file on sda8.
Change from:
UUID=c456e7bd-e79e-496c-93a1-5c522359fdaa / ext4 rw,errors=remount-ro 0 1
to:
UUID=015fac40-f127-11e3-ad5a-2b2b889acdff / ext4 rw,errors=remount-ro 0 1
Then run: sudo /usr/sbin/update-grub putting the new Mint on the GRUB menu.
When you boot into Mint on sda8, run sudo /usr/sbin/update-grub again there.
Re: How do I stop PC booting the wrong partition ?
Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2014 10:48 am
by Spearmint2
and this is why some like to use boot partitions where multiple systems may reside.
Re: How do I stop PC booting the wrong partition ?
Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2014 6:08 pm
by ron_h
I am sure it is as a result of the fact that sda8 started life as a clone of sda6 but when I looked at fstab on sda8, it showed the right UUID for sda8 but pointed to sda6 rather than sda8. It would appear that the referenced partition is then what ends up being booted in spite of the fact that the UUID does not match the one in the fstab. I have corrected the fstab on sda8 to point to sda8. Hopefully everything is now kosher and I have 2 boot partitions where everything internally cross references correctly. I will run an update-grub but (I'm chicken) not now. Later today maybe.
I started this thread in Newbie Questions in Main Edition, it is now in LMDE Newbie Questions as someone has moved it.
Many thanks to all who've helped me get to this stage.
Ron
Re: How do I stop PC booting the wrong partition ?
Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2014 7:42 pm
by WharfRat
Ron,
This will not write to the grub.cfg file, it will just dump to the terminal so you can see if that problem will persist.