A really weird problem in 2008 Spring

[AussieJohn]

I have two SATA II Hard Drives. 2008-Free is on sda and 2008-Spring is on sdb. Both have exactly the same partition arrangements and sizes because sdb was originally mirrored to sda when I had 2008-free on sda initially. The partition setup for sda (2008-Free) is..... /, /swap. /home, /allmusic, /allpictures and /zstore.

On sdb (2008-Spring) the partition names are changed slightly to prevent confusion. It is ...../, /swap, /home, /allmymusic, /allmypictures, and /zmystore.

 

I essentially have the same data on the two music partitions and the same applies to two pictures and the two zstore

 

What I have found is that if, while in 2008-Spring, I use MCC to .....Manage Disc Partitions......I find that it shows ..... /, /swap, and /home...only on sdb

while showing..... /allmymusic, /allmypictures and /zmystore on sda

When I access MCC while in 2008-Free it behaves as normal.

 

I first experienced this in the beta and rc2 version of 2008-Spring as well so didn't worry about it thinking it would not appear in the final release.

 

I am in 2008-Spring at the moment and when I open Konqueror it shows the partition titles I would expect to see in 2008-Spring but that really doesn't prove that the partitions are actually the ones on sdb.

 

Comments anyone. Cheers. John.

 

 

[moved from Software by spinynorman]

[AussieJohn]

Further to my previous post.

I went into my 2008-Free on sda and in the Music and Pictures partitions I enclosed swags of files in each into a folder simply titled Testrun in each partition. I did the same in zstore partition which contains Panel backgrounds.

 

When I rebooted into 2008-Spring sure enough the three partitions labeled /allmymusic, /allmypictures and /zmystore were actually the partitions on sda and NOT sdb.

Confirming that as well was the fact that the Panel background was no longer there because it was now hidden from view by being inside a folder in zstore on sda.

 

I then went into MCC and Partition Management and unmounted the three sda partitions and remounted the three sdb partitions to their correct titles. I then logged out and back in again but still no change.

I looked at /etc/fstab and all the sdb partitions are listed and their proper titles. There are NO sda partitions listed there. What I also noticed was that no Swap partitions were listed there which is unusual because there is one on each of sda and sdb.

 

It looks like the System is ignoring /etc/fstab if that is the controller.

 

Cheers. John.

[AussieJohn]

I checked in 2008-free that:-

1. The two swaps of sda and sdb are both shown in /etc/fstab correctly.

They are not shown in 2008-Spring /etc/fstab at all.

 

2. When entering MCC..... Partition Management......That all the sda partitions are shown as mounted and none of sdb as one would expect.

They are not shown correctly in 2008-Spring. It is as I described in an earlier posting.

 

3. I have Sound by using the HDA Driver (snd_hda_intel[alsa]), blacklisting the Capture Cards audio in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.mdv and commenting out the capture card in

etc/modprobe.conf.

Trying the same settings for Sound in 2008-Spring does not work. In fact trying all sorts of drivers still doesn't work.

 

It looks as if my enthusiasm for 2008-Spring has been too premature. So I will stick to 2008-Free for now as my working OS.

An OS that can't handle partitions correctly is not a good proposition. I suspect this is a bug that has slipped passed the debuggers somehow.

My new Mainboard or my two SATA Hard Drives cannot be to blame because it was doing this with my earlier Mainboard and the same two HDDS as well, and the fact that 2008-Free doesn't do it.

 

I hope AdamW sees this and can take up with Mandriva especially since there are no error signals appearing and seemingly no bug to actually log to report.

 

Cheers. John.

 

P.S. I was planning to delete 2008-Spring but I will hold it for the present in case Adam or others want more info or want me to try out ideas. John.

[adamw]

Honestly, I can't understand your description of the problem at all. I just don't follow. Maybe try one more time, with pictures?

[mindwave]

Honestly, I can't understand your description of the problem at all. I just don't follow. Maybe try one more time, with pictures?

 

 

I THINK

 

whats happening, is that he has 2008 on drive 1

 

he has 2008.1 on drive 2

 

He has a file structure that is ALMOST identical on each drive (save a few letter differences in his data folders) and yet when he is in 2008.1 the structure ow 2008 is what he sees.

 

again, thats my attempt at typing the way i read it.

 

I cant say I have ever had THAT issue, but I can say I have seen times where 2 sata drives get "confused" in the same system.

[AussieJohn]

Hello Adam.

It is really simple.

 

I have 2008 on sda, the following Partitions..../, swap, /home, /allmusic, /allpictures, /zstore.

I have 2008.1 on sdb, the following Partitions.../, swap, /home, /allmymusic, /allmypictures, /zmystore.

 

Each of OSs were installed with the above format with the partition name differences to easily differentiate between the two OSs.

 

When I am booted into 2008 I find that the sda partitions viewed there are the correct ones for sda, however when I am booted into 2008.1 on sdb I have discovered that only the / and the /home are the only two correct ones for sdb while /allmusic from sda is shown as /allmymusic instead of the sdb one. Similarly the sda partition /allpictures shows up as /allmypictures instead of the sdb partition of that name. Likewise the sda partition /zstore shows up as /zmystore instead of the sdb partition of that name.

 

Because I had originally had the sda and sdb running as RAID 1 just prior to installing the new Mainboard just over a week ago then breaking the RAID, I had both the music partitions containing nearly the same data as one another. The same applied to the pictures and zstore partitions. This meant that I originally didn't notice any problem.

I use a background image for the Panel on both 2008 and 2008.1 and the folder of panel background images is in the /zstore of 2008 and /zmystore in 2008.1.

When I was booted into 2008 I made some rearrangements of data there in different folders etc which included a name change of the Panel Backgrounds folder. I knew that would effect the Panel so I fixed that.

Then I booted back into 2008.1 and quickly noticed that the Panels were without backgrounds. Naturally I took the appropriate action to fix it only to discover that the /zmystore I was looking at for the Panel Backgrounds was the same as the /zstore on sda I had been using in 2008 earlier.

 

I knew this shouldn't be so so I opened MCC ....Partition Management ... and it showed sdb Drive Partition ../.. mounted, as was also .../home but not the music, pictures or store partitions.

However, on the sda Drive, the ..partition for music was mounted and shown as /allmymusic. Ditto, pictures was mounted and shown as /allmypictures and store was mounted and read /zmystore

 

I unmounted the three sda partitions and mounted the three on sdb with their correct titles. When closing out of MCC I noticed .that I did not get the usual popup asking to save to fstab which strikes me as odd. When I logged out and back in again I found that nothing had changed.

I looked at /etc/fstab and only the sdb partitions were listed, all of them, and correctly titled. But neither of the two swap partitions were listed which is odd.

 

In the meantime I have done numerous tests by bundling up large numbers of folders in /allmusic and /allpictures and /zstore while in 2008 and sure enough when I boot into 2008.1, I see all those changes on what is supposed to be /allmymusic, /allmypictures and /zmystore.

 

I repeat that I experienced this with 2008.1 beta, 2008.1rc2 and three reinstalls of 2008-Spring (with two different mother boards but same two SATA II Drives .

 

Adam, I will get some screen shots for you in my next post. I am currently in 2008-Free and will have to do a dummy upgrade to 2008-Spring to gain access to it again.

 

(yes, that Grub boot problem trying to boot from a non 2008-Spring installed Grub)

 

Cheers. John

[AussieJohn]

Hello Adam.

 

Here is the screenshots I promised you. I am now again in 2008-Spring after reinstalling it yet again because the dummy upgrade route did not work this time giving an error notification just immediately before the the post settings.

 

The fault has reproduced again although the swap partitions are shown in /etc/fstab as shown in snapshot-3. I may have been mistaken in thinking that they were not there earlier, I really don't know so maybe this aspect should be ignored.

 

As you can see it is a serious problem.

 

Cheers. John.

[iphitus]

so just swap them around in the later mandriva? the underlying name really shouldnt matter so long as the right one is mounted at the right spot. you can do that in diskdrake iirc.

 

the _best_ solution would be to use labels or uuid's to mount the partitions. Then you'd always have the right one mounted as those names are static and will not change.

[AussieJohn]

Thanks Iphitus.

Tried all that ages ago but trying to change it in MCC doesn't work because as you click Done you normally get the popup to save the change in fstab but it doesn't popup because as you can see in fstab it is already correct in fstab. Immediately you reboot and look at MCC you see the same incorrect setup as shown. Now considering I have been using my setup for over two years and 5 versions of Mandriva, including 2008-Free, without any trouble ever, it beggars the imagination that since it only happens with 2008-Spring that it is implied that maybe this is an easy fix and to just get on with it.

I always title the Partitions as I have shown when I do an install and not later via MCC.

 

This IS a system problem and I hope Adam has some suggestions for me. And it repeats with EVERY clean reinstall. What I do in the install process is exactly the same for both 2008-Free and 2008-Spring. 2008 -Free gets it right and 2008-Spring doesn't, full stop.

 

John.

[ianw1974]

Hi John,

 

Is it possible, that you can post the contents of /etc/fstab from the 2008.0 Free installation and also the 2008.1 Spring installation? I'd like to see these, to see if maybe I can help somehow.

 

Also, please give me the output from:

 

fdisk -l

 

that's a lowercase L in there, to list the partitions from the command line - you only need to do this once, since it'll be the same from either distro as it should list both /dev/sda and /dev/sdb for me. Oh, and also, please post the output from /boot/grub/grub.conf or /boot/grub/menu.lst (I don't know which one Mandy is using right now) from both 2008.0 and 2008.1 - just so I can see what each one is attempting to boot.

[AussieJohn]

Hello Ian.

You already have the fstab for 2008-Spring in the snapshots. As you can see it shows sdb1, sdb6, sdb7, sdb8 and sdb9 plus swap of both sda5 and sdb5.

The fstab lists sda1, sda6, sda7, sda8 and sda9 plus swap of both sda5 and sdb5. See Screenshot 2.

 

Therefore both of the fstabs are correct for their own respective OS just as one should expect.

 

There is no problem booting into either of 2008 or 2008.1 so there is no issue there.

 

I have deliberately changed folder arrangements in 2008-Free.. /home (sda6), /allmusic (sda7), /allpictures (sda8) and /zstore (sda9) to easily identify those partitions.

 

When I boot into 2008-Spring I find that /home (sdb6) is selected correctly but instead of sdb7 being mounted, sda7 instead is mounted but bearing the title /allmymusic (which was given during install to sdb7) instead of sdb7. The same applies to sdb8 and sdb9, namely their titles are given to sda8 and sda9 and mounted instead of the required sdb8 and sdb9. I know this because I can see the changes I made to data in the sda7, sda8 and sda9 when I boot into 2008-Spring.

 

In other words 2008-Spring is ignoring the info in its own fstab. That is why MCC Partition Management attempts to change it fail. The setting change attempts are ignored.

 

Now I hope you and others can see why this is so weird.

 

Keep in mind that in installing 2008-Spring, I do NOTHING differently regarding setup than what I do in 2008-Free.

 

When I had 2007.1 on sda and 2008-Free on sdb I never had any of this kind of problem at all using exactly the same setup back then.

 

As you requested I have attached the fdisk , but as you can see it tells you nothing appears to be out of order.

I haven't included the grub menu.lst because nothing is out of the ordinary there, as I said booting into either OS has never been a problem.

 

Cheers for now. John.

[neddie]

In other words 2008-Spring is ignoring the info in its own fstab. That is why MCC Partition Management attempts to change it fail. The setting change attempts are ignored.

Seems to me that Spring is using an fstab on sda. I don't know where you've got your /etc/ mounted but it seems like Spring is using the wrong one. Can you verify that the symptoms you are seeing are exactly as if Spring were reading 2008.0's fstab file?

 

Wild stab in the dark but maybe when the fstab file is read in, /etc/ is pointing to sda (like a primary boot partition)? Then it uses that to mount itself properly (or not, in this case).

I think Ian's advice to post the grub config is good, maybe that will shed some light on things?

[AussieJohn]

Hello Neddie

I don't think it could be looking at the wrong fstab. If it was then all the sda partitions would be showing up in 2008-Spring including root and home instead of sdb. In this case 2008-Spring is showing up the correct root and home partitions of sdb but not the rest of them. The /etc is mounted in root of 2008-Spring. I NEVER set /etc as a real separate partition as do some people

I have included the /Grub/menu.lst as requested even thoughI know it won't help anything.

 

Cheers. John.

[ianw1974]

Hi John,

 

Are you sharing the same /boot/grub/grub.conf for both 2008.0 and 2008.1? If not, I need to see both grub.conf's. I have a feeling, that as neddie says, something is confused somewhere and booting the wrong config. Both /etc/fstab's look completely different, and I've got no idea which fstab is for which version of Mandriva.

 

If you can post both configs, in text form please rather than screenshots, as it's easier to read without having to open multiple windows to try and diagnose the problem. Something like this would be good:

 

fstab from 2008.0:

 

LABEL=/				 /					   ext3	defaults		1 1
LABEL=/home			 /home				   ext3	defaults		1 2
tmpfs				   /dev/shm				tmpfs   defaults		0 0
devpts				  /dev/pts				devpts  gid=5,mode=620  0 0
sysfs				   /sys					sysfs   defaults		0 0
proc					/proc				   proc	defaults		0 0
LABEL=SWAP-sda1		 swap					swap	defaults		0 0

 

grub.conf from 2008.0:

 

default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,2)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Fedora (2.6.24.4-64.fc8)
	root (hd0,2)
	kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24.4-64.fc8 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
	initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.24.4-64.fc8.img
title Windows XP x64
	rootnoverify (hd0,1)
	chainloader +1

 

will make it easier for me to see it all in one post. I need both files from both distros, and clearly marked so I can identify which one is for 2008.0 and which one is for 2008.1. My files are not from 2008.0, this was an example, using my files from my machine, so you could see it in my post how it would look.

[AussieJohn]

Here we go again.

As you requested.

 

Fstab for 2008-Free:-

 

/dev/sda1 / ext3 relatime 1 1
/dev/sda7 /allmusic ext3 relatime 1 2
/dev/sda8 /allpictures ext3 relatime 1 2
/dev/sda6 /home ext3 relatime 1 2
/dev/cdrom /media/cdrom auto umask=0022,users,iocharset=utf8,noauto,ro,exec 0 0
/dev/cdrom2 /media/cdrom2 auto umask=0022,users,iocharset=utf8,noauto,ro,exec 0 0
/dev/sdb1 /otheroot ext3 defaults 1 2
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /tmp tmpfs defaults 0 0
/dev/sda9 /zstore ext3 relatime 1 2
/dev/sda5 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/sdb5 swap swap defaults 0 0

 

Fstab for 2008.1-Spring:-

 

# Entry for /dev/sdb1 :
UUID=9a5bdf59-0d1d-4886-b110-fae72d242497 / ext3 relatime 1 1
# Entry for /dev/sdb7 :
UUID=2d360362-3191-4d8b-b3e9-92109d407411 /allmymusic ext3 defaults 1 2
# Entry for /dev/sdb8 :
UUID=14dbb10c-2daa-491a-815e-1608b3505fa7 /allmypictures ext3 defaults 1 2
# Entry for /dev/sdb6 :
UUID=5779c256-c3c0-4ce0-ad0a-260285864668 /home ext3 relatime 1 2
/dev/cdrom /media/cdrom auto umask=0,users,iocharset=utf8,noauto,ro,exec 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /tmp tmpfs defaults 0 0
# Entry for /dev/sdb9 :
UUID=529c9310-8c8a-47c9-a110-c2a3e88d8a88 /zmystore ext3 defaults 1 2
# Entry for /dev/sda5 :
UUID=f99ed20d-f8c5-4e4f-8ab6-f19192b8b263 swap swap defaults 0 0
# Entry for /dev/sdb5 :
UUID=ba6aa2de-9bd1-4351-92c0-e79d7ba8e790 swap swap defaults 0 0

 

Grub /menu.lst for 2008-Free :-

 

timeout 10
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
gfxmenu (hd0,0)/boot/gfxmenu
default 0

title Mandriva-2008
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22.18-desktop-1mdv BOOT_IMAGE=Mandriva-2008 root=/dev/sda1 splash=silent vga=791
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/initrd-2.6.22.18-desktop-1mdv.img

title failsafe
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=failsafe root=/dev/sda1 failsafe noapic nolapic splash=silent acpi=ht
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/initrd.img

 

Grub /menu.lst for 2008-Spring :-

 

timeout 10
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
gfxmenu (hd1,0)/boot/gfxmenu
default 0

title Mandriva2008-Spring
kernel (hd1,0)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24.4-desktop-1mnb BOOT_IMAGE=Mandriva2008-Spring root=UUID=9a5bdf59-0d1d-4886-b110-fae72d242497 splash=silent vga=788
initrd (hd1,0)/boot/initrd-2.6.24.4-desktop-1mnb.img

title failsafe
kernel (hd1,0)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=failsafe root=UUID=9a5bdf59-0d1d-4886-b110-fae72d242497  failsafe
initrd (hd1,0)/boot/initrd.img

title Mandriva Linux release 2008.0 (Official)
root (hd0,0)
configfile /boot/grub/menu.lst

 

Answer to your question. No I am not sharing the same /grub/menu.lst as you can see.

 

Cheers. John.