# [solved] root partition problems in Linux / Windows

## mattwood2000

Hi guys...got a new laptop from work and I put gentoo on it as usual, but I'm seeing some very strange behaviour with the root partition.

The system boots just fine, but I get a error message during boot that says "Not all partitions were able to mount".  When display whats mounted I get the following for root:

```

/dev/root on / type ext3 (rw,noatime,errors=continue,data=ordered)

```

My fstab looks like this:

```

/dev/sda5               /boot           ext3            defaults,noatime                            1 2

/dev/sda7               /               ext3            defaults,noatime                              0 1

/dev/sda6               none            swap            sw                                               0 0

/dev/sda2               /mnt/winxp      ntfs-3g         defaults,noatime                        0 0

/dev/sda3               /mnt/Storage    vfat            defaults,noatime,umask=000      0 0

/dev/cdrom              /mnt/cdrom      auto            auto,rw                                   0 0

```

On the Windows side I use the IFS driver to give me access to my Linux stuff when I need it.  I'm only interested in the /boot and / partitions in this case.  I can access /boot just fine, but everytime I try to access / I get a "Device not Formatted" message.

Any ides on this?  I cant see anything in the dmesg that shows an error.

Thanks, Matt.Last edited by mattwood2000 on Thu Jan 15, 2009 9:44 pm; edited 1 time in total

----------

## smerf

/dev/root is a symlink pointing to the device with root fs

Which entries from fstab are not mounted after booting?

Windows... hmm... are you sure, you are trying to access proper partition?

Are your partition entries numbered in the disk order?

----------

## Mistwolf

smerf is correct.  check /etc/mtab and compare it to your fstab.  You might find that /mnt/WinXP and/or /mnt/Storage did not mount.

mtab shows what current devices are mounted, the mounting point, the file system used, etc.

With regards to accessing / from Windows, if your Gentoo system boots and works, like smerf said, check your partition numbers, you are probably trying to access your swap partition.

Hope this helps

----------

## SeaTiger

Try

```
mount -a
```

and see if it give error.

"mount" by itself output /etc/mtab, which can be wrong. To check what is actually mounted

```
cat /proc/mounts
```

----------

## mattwood2000

Hi guys...thanks for the replies.

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> /dev/root is a symlink pointing to the device with root fs
> 
> Which entries from fstab are not mounted after booting?
> ...

 

Well, I'm not sure - the boot log doesnt show which parition didn't mount, and everything seems to be mounted in fstab.

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> smerf is correct. check /etc/mtab and compare it to your fstab. You might find that /mnt/WinXP and/or /mnt/Storage did not mount. 
> 
> 

 

Here is my mtab...looks OK to me.

```

rootfs / rootfs rw 0 0

/dev/root / ext3 rw,noatime,errors=continue,data=ordered 0 0

/proc /proc proc rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec 0 0

sysfs /sys sysfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec 0 0

udev /dev tmpfs rw,nosuid,size=10240k,mode=755 0 0

devpts /dev/pts devpts rw,nosuid,noexec,gid=5,mode=620 0 0

shm /dev/shm tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec 0 0

rc-svcdir /lib64/rc/init.d tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,size=1024k,mode=755 0 0

cachedir /lib64/splash/cache tmpfs rw,size=4096k,mode=644 0 0

/dev/sda5 /boot ext3 rw,noatime 0 0

/dev/sda2 /mnt/winxp fuseblk rw,noatime,allow_other,blksize=4096 0 0

/dev/sda3 /mnt/Storage vfat rw,noatime,umask=000 0 0

usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs rw,noexec,nosuid,devmode=0664,devgid=85 0 0

nfsd /proc/fs/nfsd nfsd rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev 0 0

debugfs /sys/kernel/debug debugfs rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev 0 0

```

And, an ls -al of /dev/root shows this:

```

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 Oct  6 09:52 /dev/root -> sda7

```

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> Try
> 
> Code:
> ...

 

mount -a gives a "no medium foun" error.

Here is the output of /proc/mounts:

```

rootfs / rootfs rw 0 0

/dev/root / ext3 rw,noatime,errors=continue,data=ordered 0 0

/proc /proc proc rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec 0 0

sysfs /sys sysfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec 0 0

udev /dev tmpfs rw,nosuid,size=10240k,mode=755 0 0

devpts /dev/pts devpts rw,nosuid,noexec,gid=5,mode=620 0 0

shm /dev/shm tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec 0 0

rc-svcdir /lib64/rc/init.d tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,size=1024k,mode=755 0 0

cachedir /lib64/splash/cache tmpfs rw,size=4096k,mode=644 0 0

/dev/sda5 /boot ext3 rw,noatime,errors=continue,data=ordered 0 0

/dev/sda2 /mnt/winxp fuseblk rw,noatime,user_id=0,group_id=0,allow_other,blksize=4096 0 0

/dev/sda3 /mnt/Storage vfat rw,noatime,fmask=0000,dmask=0000,allow_utime=0022,codepage=cp437,iocharset=iso8859-1 0 0

usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs rw,nosuid,noexec,devgid=85,devmode=664 0 0

nfsd /proc/fs/nfsd nfsd rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec 0 0

debugfs /sys/kernel/debug debugfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec 0 0

```

The no medium found kind of makes me think its the CDROM...but fstab doesnt have "defaults" as an option.

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> Windows... hmm... are you sure, you are trying to access proper partition?
> 
> Are your partition entries numbered in the disk order?
> ...

 

I'm not sure I know what you mean... sda5 is boot which I can view, sda6 is swap which I dont care about and therefore dont mount in windows, and sda7 doesnt seem to mount correctly in windows.  They do appear in the correct order as the disk sizes indicate to me which one is which.

Any ideas?

----------

## mattwood2000

I might be on to something...check out my post on this thread:  https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-5298031.html#5298031

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## jcat

 *mattwood2000 wrote:*   

> 
> 
> ```
> 
> /dev/cdrom              /mnt/cdrom      auto            auto,rw                                   0 0
> ...

 

You should change this to something like

```
/dev/cdrom              /mnt/cdrom      auto            noauto,user                                   0 0
```

It's not usual to try and automatically mount the CDRom on boot, if there is no CD in the drive, yes it will fail   :Wink: 

Cheers,

jcat

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## mattwood2000

turns out the inode size changed from 128 to 256.  the IFS driver I had in windows didnt support inode sizes greater than 128.  Just got a new IFS and now everything is fine.

Thanks, Matt.

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## s|mon

Hi mattwood2000, could you tell us which version of IFS you use now that supports larger inodes - if i read the info on their homepage correctly there is not yet a version that supports indoes larger than 128.

Thanks, s|mon

----------

