damaged/altered mount points question

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rv7charlie

damaged/altered mount points question

Post by rv7charlie »

The forum rules say there are no stupid questions, but I see no restrictions on questions from those who have done stupid things. So here goes:

I had a system running perfectly fine on Mint 13 Mate (64bit AMD processor). I did a manual partition of the drive prior to the Mint install, with boot, root, swap, & home directories.

I bought a heavily discounted copy of Windows 8 Pro (the $40 deal) as a hedge against stuff that only works with windows that I must use from time to time. I found little info on how to set up a dual boot if I'm already running linux. I had a spare hard drive, so I decided to just take a shot at it by installing on the spare drive. At some point in 'trying stuff' prior to doing the win8 install, I had moved the linux drive from SATA1 port to the SATA2 port & installed the spare drive on SATA1. If memory serves, I had booted the computer with a Parted Magic disk. I had checked the partition identifiers (sorry; I've forgotten the correct term) to be sure that win8 couldn't see the partitions on my 'good' linux drive. I somehow didn't notice that the computer was booted, and unplugged the SATA cable to the Linux drive. I plugged it back in after realizing my error.

Bottom line is this: whether I leave the drive on the SATA2 port, or move it back to the SATA1 port & reboot, when Linux tries to boot it says that my home directory is missing. If I use gparted to look at the partitions, they are still there, but the mount points now just say '/media/sdb1', '/media/sdb5', etc instead of the correct mount points (with the exception of the swap partition; it's still there).

Now the question: Is there any way to repair this disk (fix the mount point info) & get it booting again?

If you answer, please allow for the fact that while I'm not a total idiot, I'm quite capable of idiotic acts and I have little background in handling linux. I can follow directions, but only if every step is laid out for me.

Thanks,

Charlie
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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catweazel
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Re: damaged/altered mount points question

Post by catweazel »

Please post a copy of your fstab (/etc/fstab) and also the output of sudo blkid.

Your fstab might be the issue and the blkid information will allow it to be corrected.
"There is, ultimately, only one truth -- cogito, ergo sum -- everything else is an assumption." - Me, my swansong.
rv7charlie

Re: damaged/altered mount points question

Post by rv7charlie »

root@PartedMagic:~# sudo blkid
/dev/sda1: UUID="3A604D3B604CFF5F" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sdb1: UUID="9ec8a236-1763-42e2-acbf-6d33945fee35" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sdb5: UUID="965cb5f7-7fe4-4a3f-954e-9e89d3e56f71" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sdb6: UUID="96d59500-6486-44fe-a0a5-a1346a80f4b9" TYPE="swap"
/dev/sdb7: UUID="7f527dc3-5cd8-43ae-a596-67c80b682cbc" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/loop0: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop1: TYPE="squashfs"
root@PartedMagic:~#

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>
proc /proc proc nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0
# / was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=965cb5f7-7fe4-4a3f-954e-9e89d3e56f71 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# /boot was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=9ec8a236-1763-42e2-acbf-6d33945fee35 /boot ext4 defaults 0 2
# /home was on /dev/sda7 during installation
UUID=7f527dc3-5cd8-43ae-a596-67c80b682cbc /home ext4 noauto 0 2
# swap was on /dev/sda6 during installation
UUID=96d59500-6486-44fe-a0a5-a1346a80f4b9 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/sdf1 /media/storage iso9660 users,user 0 0
/dev/sdg1 /media/sdg1 ext2 errors=remount-ro,noauto 0 0

I also saw 'fstab.BAK' :
# /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>
proc /proc proc nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0
# / was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=965cb5f7-7fe4-4a3f-954e-9e89d3e56f71 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# /boot was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=9ec8a236-1763-42e2-acbf-6d33945fee35 /boot ext4 defaults 0 2
# /home was on /dev/sda7 during installation
UUID=7f527dc3-5cd8-43ae-a596-67c80b682cbc /home ext4 defaults 0 2
# swap was on /dev/sda6 during installation
UUID=96d59500-6486-44fe-a0a5-a1346a80f4b9 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/sdf1 /media/storage iso9660 users,user 0 0
/dev/sdg1 /media/sdg1 ext2 errors=remount-ro,noauto 0 0


and 'fstab.d', but couldn't find a way to display that one (am I making my ignorance clear? :-) )

sda has win8 on it; sdb is the drive that was originally plugged into SATA 1 port (now on SATA 2 port) & has Linux Mint 13 Mate, & has the 'missing home' message when Linux boots.

Thanks for the help,

Charlie
PS:
Prior to posting my question, I did this fdisk -l; just in case it helps:
root@PartedMagic:~# sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160000000000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19452 cylinders, total 312500000 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x9dc96e9e

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 63 163846934 81923436 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000e2a9a

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 2048 976895 487424 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 978942 446287871 222654465 5 Extended
/dev/sdb5 978944 40038399 19529728 83 Linux
/dev/sdb6 40040448 55662591 7811072 82 Linux swap
/dev/sdb7 55664640 446287871 195311616 83 Linux
root@PartedMagic:~# sudo parted -l
Model: ATA WDC WD1600JD-75H (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 160GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 32.3kB 83.9GB 83.9GB primary ntfs boot


Model: ATA Hitachi HDS72105 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 500MB 499MB primary ext4 boot
2 501MB 228GB 228GB extended
5 501MB 20.5GB 20.0GB logical ext4
6 20.5GB 28.5GB 7999MB logical linux-swap(v1)
7 28.5GB 228GB 200GB logical ext4


Warning: Unable to open /dev/sr0 read-write (Read-only file system). /dev/sr0
has been opened read-only.
Error: Invalid partition table - recursive partition on /dev/sr0.
Ignore/Cancel? c
Model: TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-222AL (scsi)
Disk /dev/sr0: 247MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 2048B/2048B
Partition Table: unknown
Disk Flags:
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catweazel
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Re: damaged/altered mount points question

Post by catweazel »

I don't see anything obvious, but at 84 years old I don't see much of anything these days.

I see you're using parted magic so boot that and check that there is a directory named home hanging off the root of /dev/sdb5. There needs to be a directory there. If it's not there, create it as root. If it is there, make certain it's empty. That home directory will be the mount point for /dev/sdb7; it needs to exist and it needs to be empty.
"There is, ultimately, only one truth -- cogito, ergo sum -- everything else is an assumption." - Me, my swansong.
altair4
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Posts: 11427
Joined: Tue Feb 03, 2009 10:27 am

Re: damaged/altered mount points question

Post by altair4 »

Don't ask me to explain how this happened but your home partition is designed not to mount at boot. From fstab:
UUID=7f527dc3-5cd8-43ae-a596-67c80b682cbc /home ext4 noauto 0 2
"noauto" - as in "do not automatically mount at boot"

Change "noauto" to "defaults" so that it looks like this:
UUID=7f527dc3-5cd8-43ae-a596-67c80b682cbc /home ext4 defaults 0 2
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