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

[arunp]

Dear gold_finger,

Thank you for all posts and patience to my queries. but the fact i want to communicate to you is fact and reality of what is happening on the system, I am to aware that that in the terminal it shows the NTFS partition recognized but the reality is it is not appearing in the File manager or on the desktop screen, here is the screen shot side by side showing the terminal out put and file manager not showing the NTFS drive. 

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The same is true that it doesn't boot if configured in the original fashion advised by you.

gold_finger i wanted to assure you is that i sincerely wanted to use LL and distribute it among my friends here when i started that the first hindrance i faced was this i.e. they wanted one common drive partition in the portable drive where the files in this drive can be read when booted with windows and also with LL when it is booted with LL.

If i am facing this problem any body trying in this combination will definitely face this issue, I am putting all my efforts to support the LL team to put on a robust system which i am sure will once dominate the desktops. I request you if you don't trust my posts pl try this installation your self on a portable drive and if it works fine with every boot just post back one line, "it works fine" else we will continue to work on it still we put a robust LL to the world.

I sincerely apologize if my post has offended you.

Now on will continue to Post only what is requested by you. 

   

[arunp]

The image is not appearing in the previous post

[gold_finger]

You did not offend me.  The problem is that since you are new to Linux, you don't know what to look for and sometimes there are terminology mix ups.  What you describe one way, people who have a Linux-based mindset might interpret as something else from what you actually meant.  In my posts I was trying to find out certain things that would divulge whether it was just a simple misunderstanding or not, but you kept trying new things on your own and those new things ended up making my questions useless.

I now see what the problem is.  You are expecting to see the NTFS partition in your file manager under either Devices, Places or in the Home folder.  That is not where it is going to show up.  When a partition is mounted to a particular spot in the file system it will no longer show up under Devices or Places.  And it won't show up in your Home folder either unless you made the mount point in the Home folder.

In your last screenshot, to find the NTFS partition you need to go to where you mounted it -- in /mnt/Windows.  Open your file manager and click "File System" under Devices.  That will put you at the root of the file system (at "/").  On right side you will see a bunch of folders.  Click on the "/mnt" folder.  Then click on "/Windows" and you will be in the NTFS partition.  Try to create a folder in it.  Let me know if you are able to do that, or what happens when you try.

P.s.  If the system does not boot I have no clue what could be wrong with it.  I've never heard of that happening before.

P.s.s.  Assuming that you still have system setup as per latest screenshot and that the system does currently boot up properly, do the following to make the /mnt/Windows partition show up in your Home folder.  Open a terminal and enter this command to create a symlink to the partition.  Substitute your actual username where I have "username" below.

Code:

ln -s /mnt/Windows /home/username

[arunp]

Dear gold_finger,

Thank you for your patience and the excellent reply  , it worked perfectly and the drive is showing up, but not under devices, directly under File system as "mnt". I could create the link to home folder as instructed by you.

Now we need to look at our old problem, "LL is not booting". I will reconfigure the system to old partitions and install and post the outputs as requested by you in reply on 23rd Aug.

Once again thank you for your excellent support

[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?

[arunp]

Dear gold_finger,

I reinstalled LL with our original configuration (sorry partition sizes got changed) and posted below the out puts as requested from your reply #17 and also the out put from other commands posted in your earlier output. The problem remains the same, when booted the Grub blue screen runs and after the defined 10 Seconds it goes blank, does not start OS.

Code:

linux@linux:~$ sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt
linux@linux:~$ cat /mnt/etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
# / was on /dev/sdb1 during installation
UUID=668e1088-6de1-41c1-abe5-be736568f639 /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# /home was on /dev/sdb6 during installation
UUID=862df362-9691-4344-a7d3-a9f29295a067 /home           ext4    defaults        0       2
# /mnt/Windows was on /dev/sdb7 during installation
UUID=58D83E5E1618D324 /mnt/Windows    ntfs    defaults,umask=007,gid=46 0       0
# swap was on /dev/sdb5 during installation
UUID=f943611f-2a44-4f89-9b69-f840156d1c80 none            swap    sw              0       0
linux@linux:~$ sudo umount /mnt
linux@linux:~$ 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
sdb      8:16   0 465.8G  0 disk
├─sdb1   8:17   0 119.2G  0 part
├─sdb2   8:18   0     1K  0 part
├─sdb5   8:21   0   7.5G  0 part [SWAP]
├─sdb6   8:22   0  97.7G  0 part
└─sdb7   8:23   0 241.5G  0 part
sr0     11:0    1   700M  0 rom  /cdrom
loop0    7:0    0 668.3M  1 loop /rofs
linux@linux:~$ sudo blkid -c /dev/null
/dev/loop0: TYPE="squashfs"
/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/sr0: LABEL="Linux Lite 2.0 64-bit" TYPE="iso9660"
/dev/sdb1: UUID="668e1088-6de1-41c1-abe5-be736568f639" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sdb5: UUID="f943611f-2a44-4f89-9b69-f840156d1c80" TYPE="swap"
/dev/sdb6: UUID="862df362-9691-4344-a7d3-a9f29295a067" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sdb7: UUID="58D83E5E1618D324" TYPE="ntfs"
linux@linux:~$ sudo parted -l
Model: ATA WDC WD2500BEKT-7 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 250GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number  Start   End     Size    Type      File system  Flags
1      32.3kB  132MB   132MB   primary   fat16        diag
2      134MB   13.2GB  13.0GB  primary   ntfs         boot
3      13.2GB  124GB   110GB   primary   ntfs
4      124GB   250GB   126GB   extended
5      124GB   250GB   126GB   logical   ntfs


Model: Seagate Portable (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number  Start   End    Size    Type      File system     Flags
1      1049kB  128GB  128GB   primary   ext4            boot
2      128GB   500GB  372GB   extended
5      128GB   136GB  7999MB  logical   linux-swap(v1)
6      136GB   241GB  105GB   logical   ext4
7      241GB   500GB  259GB   logical   ntfs


Warning: Unable to open /dev/sr0 read-write (Read-only file system).  /dev/sr0
has been opened read-only.
Error: Invalid partition table - recursive partition on /dev/sr0.         
Ignore/Cancel? i                                                         
Model: PLDS DVD+-RW DS-8A5SH (scsi)
Disk /dev/sr0: 734MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 2048B/2048B
Partition Table: msdos

Number  Start  End  Size  Type  File system  Flags


linux@linux:~$

Pl look into it and let me know what is to be done further..

[gold_finger]

arunp,

From what I see, everything looks to be in order so really don't know what is causing the problem.  At this point, I can only make wild guesses as to what's going on.

A few weeks ago on a different forum someone else was having similar (not exactly the same) problems with booting.  Went back and forth trying various things for over seven pages thinking that the person must have been doing something wrong.  In the end the cause turned out to be something nobody suspected and we discovered it virtually by accident -- his keyboard wasn't being read properly on boot-up.  Maybe something obscure and silly like that is going on with you.

Since you appear to be partitioning and installing everything correctly, I can only guess that there might be some kind of miscellaneous hardware issue going on.  So, let's just run through some things to check.

1.  Is your monitor connected directly to the computer, or are you using some type of adapter or switch between the monitor and computer connection?

2.  Is your keyboard connected directly to computer, or are you using some type of adapter or switch between it and the computer?

3.  Do you have access to another keyboard that you can plug into computer and try?  (Can you borrow one to test on your computer from a friend, relative, or from work?)

4.  Check all connections to make sure they are not loose -- either where they are plugged into back of computer or where they are connected to your peripherals.

5.  Open computer and check that all connections are secure:

• check that RAM are firmly seated in their slots
  
• check cable connections between hard drives and motherboard
  
• check cable connections between DVD/CD player and motherboard
  
• if you have a graphics card, check that it is firmly seated in its slot
  

6.  If none of the above help, report back with exact brand and model # of your computer, your monitor, your keyboard and your mouse.  Maybe we can do searches for those to see if there are any reports of strange Linux issues with them?

Unfortunately that's all I can think of right now.  Countless people use NTFS and FAT32 partitions with Linux without issue, so I seriously doubt that is the cause of the problem.  It must be some other miscellaneous thing causing the problem.

[arunp]

Dear gold_finger,

I am using a Dell Vostro 3400 Laptop, Every thing is working fine with this as the same laptop works fine when i boot with windows and also LL configured as i posted in my reply 24th Aug 14, this reply also i am typing with LL booted and from Firefox browser in the below configuration

Code:

arunp@arunp-Vostro-3400:~$ sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt
[sudo] password for arunp:
arunp@arunp-Vostro-3400:~$ cat /mnt/etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
# / was on /dev/sdb1 during installation
UUID=c4d3ddc8-fde0-4de3-91c1-e4ea48250115 /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# /mnt/Windows was on /dev/sdb6 during installation
UUID=2555-2887  /mnt/Windows    vfat    utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0       1
# swap was on /dev/sdb5 during installation
UUID=f943611f-2a44-4f89-9b69-f840156d1c80 none            swap    sw              0       0
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
sdb      8:16   0 465.8G  0 disk
├─sdb1   8:17   0 119.2G  0 part /
├─sdb2   8:18   0     1K  0 part
├─sdb5   8:21   0   7.5G  0 part [SWAP]
└─sdb6   8:22   0 339.1G  0 part
sr0     11:0    1  1024M  0 rom 
arunp@arunp-Vostro-3400:~$ sudo blkid -c /dev/null
/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/sdb1: UUID="c4d3ddc8-fde0-4de3-91c1-e4ea48250115" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sdb5: UUID="f943611f-2a44-4f89-9b69-f840156d1c80" TYPE="swap"
/dev/sdb6: UUID="2555-2887" TYPE="vfat"
arunp@arunp-Vostro-3400:~$ sudo parted -l
Model: ATA WDC WD2500BEKT-7 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 250GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number  Start   End     Size    Type      File system  Flags
1      32.3kB  132MB   132MB   primary   fat16        diag
2      134MB   13.2GB  13.0GB  primary   ntfs         boot
3      13.2GB  124GB   110GB   primary   ntfs
4      124GB   250GB   126GB   extended
5      124GB   250GB   126GB   logical   ntfs


Model: Seagate Portable (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number  Start   End    Size    Type      File system     Flags
1      1049kB  128GB  128GB   primary   ext4            boot
2      128GB   500GB  372GB   extended
5      128GB   136GB  7999MB  logical   linux-swap(v1)
6      136GB   500GB  364GB   logical   fat32


arunp@arunp-Vostro-3400:~$

This issue happens only when an extended partition is configured with ext4 (sdb6)for /home along with an extended NTFS or FAT32 (sdb7)format for /Windows.

Is it possible anybody in your team can try installing in this configuration and figure out what's the issue.

[gold_finger]

Didn't know you were using a laptop.

Since this is such a weird occurrence and it appears that you aren't doing anything wrong, I'm going to install as you did to a spare computer and see if I run into same thing.  Will post back later with the results.

[gold_finger]

Sorry arunp,

I'm fresh out of ideas.  Did test install on a spare laptop and everything worked without any problems.  Here is output from the test:

Code:

bill@HP-Pavilion-dv6000:~$ lsblk
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0 149.1G  0 disk
├─sda1   8:1    0  14.9G  0 part /
├─sda2   8:2    0     1K  0 part
├─sda5   8:5    0   4.6G  0 part [SWAP]
├─sda6   8:6    0   6.8G  0 part /home
└─sda7   8:7    0 122.9G  0 part /mnt/Windows
sr0     11:0    1  1024M  0 rom 
bill@HP-Pavilion-dv6000:~$ sudo parted -l
Model: ATA ST9160821AS (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 160GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number  Start   End     Size    Type      File system     Flags
1      1049kB  16.0GB  16.0GB  primary   ext4            boot
2      16.0GB  160GB   144GB   extended
5      16.0GB  20.9GB  4897MB  logical   linux-swap(v1)
6      20.9GB  28.1GB  7235MB  logical   ext4
7      28.1GB  160GB   132GB   logical   ntfs


bill@HP-Pavilion-dv6000:~$ cat /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
# / was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=e0447201-638f-4375-98a1-e510245bc183 /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# /home was on /dev/sda6 during installation
UUID=283dd3a7-5d1a-4ba3-b0ae-d28d64641134 /home           ext4    defaults        0       2
# /mnt/Windows was on /dev/sda7 during installation
UUID=434E2ECE41CD2A42 /mnt/Windows    ntfs    defaults,umask=007,gid=46 0       0
# swap was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=2f0b0896-6a1f-499f-aa7f-b29882b0e3df none            swap    sw              0       0