installing 11.4 on 2tb drive

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

For some reason i can’t get the system running.
I installed LXDE from 11.4 64 and partitioned the drive new.
Installation went fine, but after reboot i get told ‘no operating system’. He?

linux-p304:/home/joerg # fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 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: 0x59d3d24c

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1            2048     4208639     2103296   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda2   *     4208640    46153727    20972544   83  Linux
/dev/sda3        46153728   976773119   465309696   83  Linux

WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sdb'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted.


Disk /dev/sdb: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders, total 3907029168 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: 0x00000000

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *        2048     4208638     2103295+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb2   *     4208640    46153726    20972543+  83  Linux
/dev/sdb3   *    46153728   360724478   157285375+  83  Linux
/dev/sdb4               1           1           0+  ee  GPT

The first drive is not connected otherwise, so its a little mixed up.
sdb2 would be / drive from where it boots. The installer made it like this.

How can i get it to boot from the 2tb hdd?

#2

I can’t understand where you are. And if your drives are not connected, I doubt your installed system knows what is going on. If sdb2 is root, you only need a boot flag on that!

Was sda connected when you installed to sdb?

#3

I am here :slight_smile:

Well, i think i solved it.
First, the first drive was not connected upon installation.
So the 2TB drive was alone.

What i did is, what i was reading somewhere in the forum.

I went into grub via recovery disc and did
find
root
setup

What concerns me is only the message i got from grub after writing that said:

‘running “embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage_5 (hd0)”…failed (this is not fatal)’

Does that mean anything?

Right now, after i did this, the harddrive booted up and i am in the desktop. But this is the first time that i had a situation like this.
So strange.

#4

I guess you can mix up things in Grub lot when you add a new disk before (that is detected eaerlier by the hardware scan) the one you installed Grub on during the installation process. What was hd0 to grub is now hd1 and there is another *hd0. *Try to understand what happens when all the hd0 pointers are unchanged in e.g. /boot /grub/menu.lst?

#5

On 07/29/2011 10:56 PM, JoergJaeger wrote:
>
> For some reason i can’t get the system running.
> I installed LXDE from 11.4 64 and partitioned the drive new.
> Installation went fine, but after reboot i get told ‘no operating
> system’. He?
>
>
> Code:
> --------------------
> linux-p304:/home/joerg # fdisk -l
>
> Disk /dev/sda: 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: 0x59d3d24c
>
> Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
> /dev/sda1 2048 4208639 2103296 82 Linux swap / Solaris
> /dev/sda2 * 4208640 46153727 20972544 83 Linux
> /dev/sda3 46153728 976773119 465309696 83 Linux
>
> WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on ‘/dev/sdb’! The util fdisk doesn’t support GPT. Use GNU Parted.
>
>
> Disk /dev/sdb: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes
> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders, total 3907029168 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: 0x00000000
>
> Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
> /dev/sdb1 * 2048 4208638 2103295+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
> /dev/sdb2 * 4208640 46153726 20972543+ 83 Linux
> /dev/sdb3 * 46153728 360724478 157285375+ 83 Linux
> /dev/sdb4 1 1 0+ ee GPT
>
> --------------------
>
>
>
> The first drive is not connected otherwise, so its a little mixed up.
> sdb2 would be / drive from where it boots. The installer made it like
> this.
>
> How can i get it to boot from the 2tb hdd?

You should only have 1 partition with the “active” flag set (the Boot flag
above). The way it is, the MBR is going to try to boot swap. You can fix that
with the “a” command in fdisk. You will need to know if GRUB was installed on
partition 2 or 3.

I am assuming that the BIOS is booting the 2 TB drive.

#6

On 07/30/2011 07:59 AM, Larry Finger wrote:
> On 07/29/2011 10:56 PM, JoergJaeger wrote:
>>
>> For some reason i can’t get the system running.
>> I installed LXDE from 11.4 64 and partitioned the drive new.
>> Installation went fine, but after reboot i get told ‘no operating
>> system’. He?
>>
>>
>> Code:
>> --------------------
>> linux-p304:/home/joerg # fdisk -l
>>
>> Disk /dev/sda: 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: 0x59d3d24c
>>
>> Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
>> /dev/sda1 2048 4208639 2103296 82 Linux swap / Solaris
>> /dev/sda2 * 4208640 46153727 20972544 83 Linux
>> /dev/sda3 46153728 976773119 465309696 83 Linux
>>
>> WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on ‘/dev/sdb’! The util
>> fdisk doesn’t support GPT. Use GNU Parted.
>>
>>
>> Disk /dev/sdb: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes
>> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders, total 3907029168 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: 0x00000000
>>
>> Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
>> /dev/sdb1 * 2048 4208638 2103295+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
>> /dev/sdb2 * 4208640 46153726 20972543+ 83 Linux
>> /dev/sdb3 * 46153728 360724478 157285375+ 83 Linux
>> /dev/sdb4 1 1 0+ ee GPT
>>
>> --------------------
>>
>>
>>
>> The first drive is not connected otherwise, so its a little mixed up.
>> sdb2 would be / drive from where it boots. The installer made it like
>> this.
>>
>> How can i get it to boot from the 2tb hdd?
>
> You should only have 1 partition with the “active” flag set (the Boot
> flag above). The way it is, the MBR is going to try to boot swap. You
> can fix that with the “a” command in fdisk. You will need to know if
> GRUB was installed on partition 2 or 3.
>
> I am assuming that the BIOS is booting the 2 TB drive.
>
>
>
>

Well, like i mentioned its fixed.
The problem was really by the drive alone. At the installation and first
boot there was only the 2 drive connected. The first drive was ‘not’
present.
I fixed it with just the 2.drive connected and using grub to rewrite the
config.
But still its strange. Perhaps it is because of the size of the drive.
Not sure. But now i know.
Thanks for everyons participation. I’ll appreciate it.

–
Euer Komputerfriek Joerg

#7

I vaguely recall (a couple of years ago) obtaining a similar (possibly not identical) error on a 1.5 TB when it was (and still is) the only drive in my PC when attempting to install from openSUSE.

I ended up using either parted magic or gparted to carve up the hard drive before my next install attempt, and after that the install worked ok.

For my 1.5 TB drive partitioning, which is NOW successful, I have:


Disk /dev/sda: 1500.3 GB, 1500301910016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 182401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00094fab

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1       12748   102398278+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2           12749       16572    30716280   83  Linux
/dev/sda3   *       16573       18484    15358140   83  Linux
/dev/sda4           18485      182402  1316665344    5  Extended
/dev/sda5           18485       19313     6656000   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6           19313       23775    35840000   83  Linux
/dev/sda7           23775      182402  1274166272   83  Linux

which nominally (from my openSUSE-11.3 boot) mounts to:


oldcpu@core-i7:~> df -Th
Filesystem    Type    Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2     ext4     29G   12G   16G  43% /                                                                                                   
devtmpfs  devtmpfs    3.0G  300K  3.0G   1% /dev
tmpfs        tmpfs    3.0G  4.0K  3.0G   1% /dev/shm                                                                                            
/dev/sda7     ext4    1.2T  763G  373G  68% /home
/dev/sda1  fuseblk     98G   16G   83G  16% /windows/C                                                                                        
/dev/sda6     ext4     34G  3.6G   30G  11% /home/oldcpu/114home

where sda2 is my openSUSE-11.3 install that I use nominally (and /sda7 is the /home for openSUSE-11.3).

/sda3 is my / for a test openSUSE-11.4 and /sda6 is the /home for the test openSUSE-11.4.

I’m not particularly happy with my having /dev/sda3 as my active partition, but I sort of messed up a bit in installing grub (ie I did not pay attention very well) during an install of my test 11.4. My assumption is when (and if) I finally replace my 11.3 (but keep the content of 11.3’s /home on sda7) that I will restore the active partition to /dev/sda2.

Back to the subject of this thread - I found that if I put the largest 1.2 TB partition at the end of the extended area (in /dev/sda7) I had more success (and no such errors). If I had the large 1.2 TB partition any where but at the end of the hard drive’s partitioning I encountered that quoted error (or other errors). I was under time pressure at the time to complete the job (with a family vacation coming up) so I unfortunately did not take great notes. I may have documented some of this in a forum post.