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

[arunp]

Dear LL Team,

I have been successfully been installing LL2 in my USB & USB HDD and its working fine, except following issue;

1.When installed in USB HDD i configured one of the extended partition as FAT32 and gave the mount point as Windows the software installs and at reboot the grub runs and displays the standard LL boot options and then once booted to LL2 it goes blank further OS doesn't get loaded.

2.I reinstalled the same with all extended partitions as ext4 format it works fine.

I tried this n number of times the above 2 options the result was same, right now i working with the option 2, but i want to configure one of the partitions as FAT32.

Pl help me in this 

Arun

[gold_finger]

Too difficult to figure out exactly what you are trying to do.  Please post back with your desired partition setup in a list-type form -- eg.  Partition -- Mount Point -- Format -- Partition Type.

Below is an example of how I'd like you to report what you are trying to do.  It is NOT a suggestion of how to do anything, because I don't know how you are trying to set anything up yet.

/dev/sdb1 -- / (root) -- Ext4 -- Primary partition
/dev/sdb2 -- none -- none -- Extended partition
/dev/sdb5 -- /home -- Ext4 -- Logical partition
/dev/sdb6 -- /Windows -- FAT32 -- Logical partition

[arunp]

Dear gold_finger,

Thank you, will do the same; given below is my setup



If i configure the unallocated space to

  /dev/sdd7 -- FAT32  -- /Windows

The USB HDD boots and the grub shows the LL options and after the defined time it goes blank, the OS doesn't start.

If i configure the unallocated space to

/dev/sdd7 -- ext4 -- /local

It works perfect.

Pl guide me how to use FAT32 partition.

Arun

[gold_finger]

The drive can only have one "Extended" partition.  If you are trying to create another one, that's why it's failing.  Your sdb1 extended partition is currently filled by both the swap and home partitions.  You can use GParted (from a live LL DVD/USB) to expand the sdb1 partition to include all of the unallocated space first, then add a "Logical" FAT32 partition if you want it inside the extended partition.  Or you can just make the unallocated space into another "Primary" partition.

Are you trying to add that partition to the installation that you already have, or are you trying to re-install everything and have the FAT32 partition set-up during the installation?

Do you want the partition to be automatically mounted on each start-up?

[arunp]

Dear gold_finger,

I have tried all the options as you have said in the mail earlier;

First: During installation i added it to sdb1 as logical FAT32 partition - result - After Grub boot screen the OS doesn't start

Second: Using LL live CD and G parted removed this FAT32 and made it as unallocated using Gparted - result - After Grub boot screen the OS starts fine

Third:  During installation i added it to sdb1 as logical e4xt partition - result - After Grub boot screen the OS starts fine

Fourth: I installed as given in the screen shot of my earlier post and using Gparted made it as another Primary FAT32 partition - - After Grub boot screen the OS doesn't start 

As you mentioned I want to know how to configure FAT32 partition set-up during installation

Also i want to know how to assign it as another primary FAT32 partition and mount it automatically on each start-up.

Pl guide me...

[gold_finger]

I'm not sure what the problem is.  Maybe FAT32 format can not be used for such a large partition.  Have read that there is normally a size limit of 32GB in MS Windows for FAT32 partitions, but did not think that applied to Linux as well.  Maybe it does.  I don't know since I've not tried that.

You're not assigning the FAT32 partition a mount point of "/" or "/home", are you?

When you install and are asked for a mount point for the FAT32 partition, what are you filling in for the mount point?

As an experiment, try using NTFS format instead and see if that works.  It should.

Do you have to use FAT32 for some reason?  Could you use NTFS instead (assuming that experiment works)?

[arunp]

Dear gold_fingger,

Thanks for the reply, I am mounting it as /Windows also tried it with /Dos, also tried NTFS still the same problem.

I am confused, may be something to do with the Grub? any script to be edited? because the Grub boots shows all the LL options with the seconds running below and after the defined time it goes blank like its not able to decide to boot from where (I persume)  )

I hope you & the LL team dig into this issue and find out the solution 

[gold_finger]

If you formatted that partition as NTFS and still had same problem, then my best guess is that you are making some kind of error in the steps you are following.

Boot the computer with your Linux Lite installation DVD.  Once booted up, go to Menu -> System -> Partition Drives to start the GParted program.  Take a screenshot of the window showing your drive partitions and post that back here for us to see.

Open a Terminal and enter the following commands:

Code:

lsblk
sudo blkid -c /dev/null
sudo parted -l

(NOTE:  that's a lowercase letter "L" at end of last command, not the number 1.)

Copy the entire terminal output and paste it back here for us to see.

Follow directions on this post for posting your terminal output and screenshot back here to the forum.

[arunp]

Dear gold_finger,

Thanks for the mail, here is the output from the terminal:

Code:

arunp@arunp-Vostro-3400:~$ lsblk
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0 232.9G  0 disk
├─sda1   8:1    0 125.5M  0 part
├─sda2   8:2    0  12.2G  0 part
├─sda3   8:3    0 102.9G  0 part
├─sda4   8:4    0     1K  0 part
└─sda5   8:5    0 117.7G  0 part /media/arunp/30D748C43DA76362
sdb      8:16   0 465.8G  0 disk
├─sdb1   8:17   0     1K  0 part
├─sdb2   8:18   0  59.6G  0 part /
├─sdb3   8:19   0 305.6G  0 part /media/arunp/59F1FF817729F31A
├─sdb5   8:21   0   7.5G  0 part [SWAP]
└─sdb6   8:22   0  93.1G  0 part /home
sr0     11:0    1  1024M  0 rom 
arunp@arunp-Vostro-3400:~$ sudo blkid -c /dev/null
[sudo] password for arunp:
Sorry, try again.
[sudo] password for arunp:
/dev/sda1: SEC_TYPE="msdos" LABEL="DellUtility" UUID="07DB-011B" TYPE="vfat"
/dev/sda2: LABEL="RECOVERY" UUID="663EC66B3EC633B9" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sda3: LABEL="OS" UUID="0E58C90F58C8F68D" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sda5: UUID="30D748C43DA76362" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sdb2: UUID="13ea928f-6d38-445e-b3b7-c06760ec9fea" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sdb3: UUID="59F1FF817729F31A" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sdb5: UUID="01dae284-d8de-4c09-bea1-2759ea815dc4" TYPE="swap"
/dev/sdb6: UUID="0278cd76-2f6f-44fa-bb27-87602c6c6332" TYPE="ext4"
arunp@arunp-Vostro-3400:~$

[gold_finger]

Sorry, need output from one more command please:

Code:

cat /etc/fstab