[gentoo-user] partitioning from Knoppix

[gentoo-user] partitioning from Knoppix

[Jorge Almeida]

I'm trying to reinstall gentoo, after serious troubles due to hd failure
(I fear) or filesystem corruption (I hope). So, I booted Knoppix and I'm
trying to repartition hda. I deleted all partitions and tried to save
changes, before making new partitions. Problem is:

	root@0[~]# fdisk /dev/hda
	
	The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 9733.
	There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
	and could in certain setups cause problems with:
	1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
	2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
	   (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)
	
	   Command (m for help): p
	
	   Disk /dev/hda: 80.0 GB, 80060424192 bytes
	   255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9733 cylinders
	   Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
	
	      Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
	
	      Command (m for help): w
	      The partition table has been altered!
	
	      Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
	
	      WARNING: Re-reading the partition table failed with error 16:
	      Device or resource busy.
	      The kernel still uses the old table.
	      The new table will be used at the next reboot.
	      Syncing disks.


Rebooting is not an option, since I'm working remote through ssh.

BTW:
	root@0[~]# mount
	/dev/root on / type ext2 (rw)
	/dev/hdc on /cdrom type iso9660 (ro)
	/dev/cloop on /KNOPPIX type iso9660 (ro)
	/ramdisk on /ramdisk type tmpfs (rw,size=813616k)
	/UNIONFS on /UNIONFS type unionfs
	(rw,noatime,dirs=/ramdisk=rw:/KNOPPIX=ro)
	/UNIONFS/dev/pts on /UNIONFS/dev/pts type devpts (rw)
	/proc/bus/usb on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw,devmode=0666)
	automount(pid2703) on /mnt/auto type autofs
	(rw,fd=4,pgrp=2703,minproto=2,maxproto=4)
	/UNIONFS/dev/hdb5 on /mnt/hdb5 type ext3 (rw)
	
So, what went wrong? And is there any way to force use of the new table,
other than rebooting?
-- 
Jorge Almeida
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] partitioning from Knoppix

[Jorge Almeida]

On Sat, 8 Oct 2005, Robert Crawford wrote:

> I'm virtually certain re-writing the partition table is going to require a 
> reboot. 
> 
Bummer... 
> BTW, over the years I've had several drives with the "over 1024" cylinder 
> message, and it has never been a problem with many versions of linux, 
> including Gentoo, so that shouldn't be a problem using any modern distro.
> 
Same here. The 1024 issue has proven not to be one. Although I keep the
/boot partition in the beginning...
> Robert Crawford
> 
Thanks.

-- 
Jorge Almeida
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] partitioning from Knoppix

[Robert Crawford]

I'm virtually certain re-writing the partition table is going to require a 
reboot. 

BTW, over the years I've had several drives with the "over 1024" cylinder 
message, and it has never been a problem with many versions of linux, 
including Gentoo, so that shouldn't be a problem using any modern distro.

Robert Crawford

On Saturday 08 October 2005 04:36 am, Jorge Almeida wrote:
> I'm trying to reinstall gentoo, after serious troubles due to hd failure
> (I fear) or filesystem corruption (I hope). So, I booted Knoppix and I'm
> trying to repartition hda. I deleted all partitions and tried to save
> changes, before making new partitions. Problem is:
>
> 	root@0[~]# fdisk /dev/hda
>
> 	The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 9733.
> 	There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
> 	and could in certain setups cause problems with:
> 	1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
> 	2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
> 	   (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)
>
> 	   Command (m for help): p
>
> 	   Disk /dev/hda: 80.0 GB, 80060424192 bytes
> 	   255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9733 cylinders
> 	   Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
>
> 	      Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
>
> 	      Command (m for help): w
> 	      The partition table has been altered!
>
> 	      Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
>
> 	      WARNING: Re-reading the partition table failed with error 16:
> 	      Device or resource busy.
> 	      The kernel still uses the old table.
> 	      The new table will be used at the next reboot.
> 	      Syncing disks.
>
>
> Rebooting is not an option, since I'm working remote through ssh.
>
> BTW:
> 	root@0[~]# mount
> 	/dev/root on / type ext2 (rw)
> 	/dev/hdc on /cdrom type iso9660 (ro)
> 	/dev/cloop on /KNOPPIX type iso9660 (ro)
> 	/ramdisk on /ramdisk type tmpfs (rw,size=813616k)
> 	/UNIONFS on /UNIONFS type unionfs
> 	(rw,noatime,dirs=/ramdisk=rw:/KNOPPIX=ro)
> 	/UNIONFS/dev/pts on /UNIONFS/dev/pts type devpts (rw)
> 	/proc/bus/usb on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw,devmode=0666)
> 	automount(pid2703) on /mnt/auto type autofs
> 	(rw,fd=4,pgrp=2703,minproto=2,maxproto=4)
> 	/UNIONFS/dev/hdb5 on /mnt/hdb5 type ext3 (rw)
>
> So, what went wrong? And is there any way to force use of the new table,
> other than rebooting?
> --
> Jorge Almeida
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] partitioning from Knoppix [SOLVED]

[Jorge Almeida]

Sorry to answer myself, but it may be usefull for others...

Knoppix uses any swap partition it finds. Since /dev/hda2 was swap
(which doesn't show in mount, of course), the device was busy.
swapoff /UNIONFS/dev/hda2 did release the drive. I partitioned with
sfdisk, but fdisk -l /dev/hda is consistent.

-- 
Jorge Almeida
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] partitioning from Knoppix

[Norberto Bensa]

Robert Crawford wrote:
> I'm virtually certain re-writing the partition table is going to require a
> reboot.

Just umount everything and re-write the partition table. No reboot needed. I 
did it hundred of times.

>
> BTW, over the years I've had several drives with the "over 1024" cylinder
> message, and it has never been a problem with many versions of linux,
> including Gentoo, so that shouldn't be a problem using any modern distro.
>

That's a limitation of the BIOS. Some BIOS are not able to read past the 1023 
cylinder, but it's not a problem anymore. 


Best Regards,

-- 
Norberto Bensa
4544-9692
Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Argentina
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] partitioning from Knoppix

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Sat, 8 Oct 2005 09:36:36 +0100 (WEST), Jorge Almeida wrote:

> So, what went wrong? And is there any way to force use of the new table,
> other than rebooting?

hdparm -z /dev/hda forces the kernel to try to re-read the partition
table, but it may still fail.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Midget psychic escapes from prison, small medium at large!

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Re: [gentoo-user] partitioning from Knoppix

[Jorge Almeida]

On Sun, 9 Oct 2005, Neil Bothwick wrote:

> On Sat, 8 Oct 2005 09:36:36 +0100 (WEST), Jorge Almeida wrote:
> 
> > So, what went wrong? And is there any way to force use of the new table,
> > other than rebooting?
> 
> hdparm -z /dev/hda forces the kernel to try to re-read the partition
> table, but it may still fail.
> 
Thanks, it's good to know for the future, but the problem is solved (see
my reply to myself).:)

Jorge 
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gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list