LL2 not booting if one extended partition is formatted to FAT 32

[rokytnji]

  I don't know how much help I'll be but I'll try anyways.

I am fighting my own /dev/sdb. I have it hooked up via adapter cables. The device is a 16gig SSD removed from my Acer C710 chromebook.
It acts flaky as hell. It wont show in fdisk -l, parted -l, sudo gdisk -l. example:

Code:

# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 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: 0x7b89e107

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        2048      206847      102400    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2          206848   239282175   119537664    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3       239284222   625141759   192928769    5  Extended
/dev/sda5       276353024   616949759   170298368   83  Linux
/dev/sda6       239284224   276350630    18533203+  83  Linux
/dev/sda7       616951808   625141759     4094976   82  Linux swap / Solaris

Code:

# parted -l
Model: ATA SAMSUNG HM321HI (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 320GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number  Start   End    Size    Type      File system     Flags
1      1049kB  106MB  105MB   primary   ntfs            boot
2      106MB   123GB  122GB   primary   ntfs
3      123GB   320GB  198GB   extended
6      123GB   141GB  19.0GB  logical   ext4
5      141GB   316GB  174GB   logical   ext4
7      316GB   320GB  4193MB  logical   linux-swap(v

Code:

# gdisk /dev/sdb
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 0.8.8

Problem opening /dev/sdb for reading! Error is 2.
The specified file does not exist!

So. I used a gparted live cd ver 0.19.1-1.i486 and booted it. I got it to see /dev/sdb. I assigned a partition table and told it to be GPT. I hit apply. Done. I then made a new partition and told it to be ext4 and labled it as / (root). Apply and done.
Gparted live iso shows my 16gig ssd as / formatted as ext 4 as a GPT drive.

But. Becuase the hard drive is flaky. I have to look in

Code:

# dmesg | tail
[  209.172126] Buffer I/O error on device sdb, logical block 0
[  209.172196] ldm_validate_partition_table(): Disk read failed.
[  209.172219] Dev sdb: unable to read RDB block 0
[  209.172252]  sdb: unable to read partition table
[  209.172441] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] READ CAPACITY failed
[  209.172445] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] 
[  209.172446] Result: hostbyte=DID_NO_CONNECT driverbyte=DRIVER_OK
[  209.172449] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Sense not available.
[  209.172477] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
[  986.488753] perf interrupt took too long (2509 > 2500), lowering kernel.perf_event_max_sample_rate to 50000

Because I still can't get the durn thing to be recognised even then. So probably a hardware issue.
Anyways. Since you asked. Maybe try

Code:

sudo dmesg | tail

instead of

Code:

# lsblk
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0 298.1G  0 disk
├─sda1   8:1    0   100M  0 part
├─sda2   8:2    0   114G  0 part
├─sda3   8:3    0     1K  0 part
├─sda5   8:5    0 162.4G  0 part /home
├─sda6   8:6    0  17.7G  0 part /
└─sda7   8:7    0   3.9G  0 part [SWAP]
sr0     11:0    1  1024M  0 rom

Because as you can see. dmesg can see my /dev/sdb when nothing else can.
HTH. Like I said. My chromebook is dead and I am fighting with its hard drive myself.
Just stepped in because I was asked. I don't know how much help or not this gives.

Happy Trails, Rok

Oh yeah. Since we are talking Windows File systems here.

Code:

apt-cache policy ntfs-3g

And was a md5sum done of Linux Lite 2.0 before installing?