Failure reading root partition during boot

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

Hi

Recently, I had to switch harddrives on one of my servers due to the need for hardware.

However, when I switched back to the original harddrive I got a surprise : Instead of booting normally in OpenSuse 11.3, it booted in the grub shell.

I did a root ( hd0,1) but when I attempted the setup cmd it failed. Thinking that I probably was a configuration error ( nothing was changed - the drive had spent some time in a nice anti static bag ) I booted using a USB key.

To my surprise I got a message stating that parted couldn’t read the other partitions ( boot and swap ) and hence I would not be able to edit then. Fortunately, the data partition seemed OK so I can backup the data.

Preferbly, I would like to be able to restore my original system. Any ideas on how I might do this?

/Henrik

#2

Hello Henrik and welcome to the openSUSE Forum

I would booting up with a PartedMagic CD, and follow the steps below:

You type: grub
Terminal: grub>

You type: find /boot/grub/menu.lst
Terminal: (hd0,1) (N.B. You may get different, replace your numbers in the next step)

You type: root (hd0,1) (Or different depending what previous step gave for you)
Terminal: Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83

You type: setup (hd0)
Terminal: Checking if /boot/grub/stage1 exists … yes Computer finally returns this-- Succeeded…Done

You type: quit
reboot

Good Luck!

Romanator

#3

Hi Romanator

Thank You for your reply.

I tried it and failed… I did some snooping using the PartEd live usb and found that my /boot/initrd is missing :frowning:

Will try and recreate it using the mkinitrd.

/Henrik