creating a boot partition on an existing drive

pickarooney

As is often the way, in an attempt to fix one problem I've been led to fix another problem which in turn has led to an even bigger one...

Original problem: gfx card tv-out is unsupported with ati drivers.
Original solution: use vesa drivers

Next problem: video playback is very jerky with crappy driver
Next solution: try and improve hdparm results, which seem very poor

New problem: possible IDE sharing problem, with two hard drives
New solution: remove smaller, slower drive and try with only one, faster HD

Fourth problem: boot sector is on smaller HD, can't boot without it
Fourth solution: ?

I've been told the only way to make a boot partition on the bigger hard drive is to format it completely. This HD has the whole OS plus the /home partition. The smaller HD is only used for temp storage and, unfortunately, has the boot partition on it.

Can anyone help me with this latest problem, or find better answers to the three previous ones? Or just confirm that I'm screwed unless I format/buy a new HD.

enno

pickarooney wrote:

Fourth problem: boot sector is on smaller HD, can't boot without it
Fourth solution: ?

grub on a floppy.
Check IDE jumpers: ensure one unit is slave, and one master.
Any spare space on that one disk?

pickarooney

If I boot from a floppy with GRUB or LILO (currently using LILO, but am not married to it), what steps do I need to take next? The jumpers are OK - the small drive is master, the big one is slave. I'd prefer to have that reversed, but it's not possible until I can boot from the big drive. There's 9% of 80 GB left on the big one.

OfflerCrocGod

Try downloading a Gentoo minimal CD and then follow the online instructions on how to partition your drive using fdisk. The CD is like ~60MB so it's smaller then Knoppix. Then for grub you will need the floppy as enno has already said.

tomk

pickarooney wrote:

Next problem: video playback is very jerky with crappy driver

A logical, and correct, diagnosis.

Next solution: try and improve hdparm results, which seem very poor

Might help a little, but you'll still be stuck with the crappy driver, won't you?

Fourth problem: boot sector is on smaller HD, can't boot without it
Fourth solution: ?

You don't have to use a boot partition, you know. I use a boot directory on all my systems, and they work fine. You have 7.2GB space left, so I'd say boot up using some live CD, mount both disks, and copy your current boot partition to a boot directory on the large drive. Then reconfigure lilo or grub using a boot floppy.

pickarooney

I think I may not have a boot partition, as when I type mount there's no mention of it. There's a /boot directory, but I'm not sure what physical drive it's on (how to check that?)
If I don't have a boot partition, is it just a case of floppying up and typing lilo -b /dev/hdb ?

tomk

pickarooney wrote:

There's a /boot directory, but I'm not sure what physical drive it's on (how to check that?)

There's always going to be /boot - if you have a boot partition, it's the mount point for it, otherwise it's the boot directory. Check it by having a look at your /etc/fstab, or post it here if you want.

If I don't have a boot partition, is it just a case of floppying up and typing lilo -b /dev/hdb ?

Since migrating to grub, I've managed to forget everything I knew about lilo, but from the man page, that command looks right.

pickarooney

Not at my machine now, but fstab doesn't have a /boot entry as far as I recall.
Will try tonight and let you know how it went.

pickarooney

Well, that was a complete disaster!

I edited lilo.conf and fstab then shut down, disconnected the small drive, made the big one master and started up.

Got as far as the bootup screen and the kernel panicked.
Errors as follows:

hda: status timeout: status = 0x0 {Busy}
hda: SMA disabled
hda: drive not ready for command
...
EXT3-fs: unable to read superblock
...
kernel panic: no init found. Try passing init=option to kernel.


So I tried to boot to a floppy and got another kernel panic, again telling me to try passing int =option to kernel.

I then booted with a Knoppix CD. The hard drive is unavailable.
As root, I tried mount -t exts /dev/hda1 /mnt/hd
I tried with /dev/hda, /dev/hdba, /dev/hdb, /dev/hdb1, /dev/hdb6 but each time I get the message
"/dev/hda1 is not a valid block device"

So I can't boot from the big drive, can't access it to change lilo.conf and fstab back... screwed basically. Thank fsck for Knoppix though, at least I can use internet.

tomk

I'm still not clear - did you have a boot partition or not? And after editing the files and changing the disks, did you run lilo to install it on the new master drive's MBR? What exactly did you do to make the large drive the master - change the jumper, the cable position, both? Does your BIOS see the large drive as the primary master? If Knoppix can't see it, I expect not.

You also don't mention anything about copying the boot files from their directory or partition on the small drive to the large drive.

pickarooney

There was no boot partition
I ran lilo to install the new mbr
I changed the jumper but not the cable psoition
BIOS sees HD as primary master
Don't think there was anything to copy from small to large drive. Can't get at fstab now unfortunately.

nadir

cant you just change the bootable flag with fdisk, and install lilo on it.

pickarooney

Maybe. Where can I do that from - can't boot with a floppy, knoppix returns nothing with fdisk -l

tomk

pickarooney wrote:

Don't think there was anything to copy from small to large drive.

If that's the case, I've misread your posts. As I understand it, the small disk was your primary master /dev/hda, and had boot data in either a partition or a directory - later established to be a directory. The large disk was your primary slave /dev/hdb, and held the rest of the OS and /home. You made the large disk the primary master, but did not copy the boot data over, so you now have /dev/hda with lilo in the MBR, but nothing to boot with i.e. kernel, system map, etc.

If I've got this wrong, I'll get out of this thread before I give you any more bad advice!

pickarooney

If there's any bad advice, it's because I'm not 100% clear myself and am thus badly explaining things. The /boot directory was on /hdb (the 80 gigger as it was known) as it happens.

I've nearly fixed it now, and it looks to be a cable problem. I rebooted with the Knoppix CD, still with just the 80GB connected, as master, and this time, although the BIOS screen displayed the hard-drive as primary master, the Knoppix boot screen repeated the message:
hda: lost interrupt
Powered down, then removed the IDE cable from the back of the (still unplugged) smaller HD and plugged it into the bigger HD. Rebooted to Knoppix again and this time, despite the message

suprious 8259A interrupt

it booted and recognised the hard drive. I could read from it and write to it. I rebooted without Knoppix and all was well, back to my old setup.
A message flashed up underneath the list of IDE devices on the BIOS screen, something to do with 80 and cable, but I didn't have time to read it. It may have been advice to use a 80-IDE cable or indicating the absence of one. I think it might be worth my while changing my 40s for 80s.

Still, hdparm results are the same as before.

pickarooney

Well, the new 80-core cable didn't make a blind bit of difference to hdparm speeds, but at least all is back up and running now. Time to get that new gfx card, methinks.