Lost data on /boot partition [solved]

Lost data on /boot partition. Is there a way to recover it with Archlinux CD?
Last edited by primez (2010-04-08 18:45:53)

i think the easiest is to chroot into your installation, and then do a pacman -S kernel26

Similar Messages

My Windows 8.1 Encore tablet lost it's boot partition again...?

Hi
This is kind of annoying now because for the second time in 2 years my tablet has decided to lose the boot.ini and will not boot at all. The last time this happened Toshiba had to change the board which took nearly a month... So it's back to PC World then, I shall rephrase that. It's back to Currys PC World Mega Store. It's a good job that I took out extended warranty. If I knew what I was going encounter so many problems with this tablet I would have never bought one. I cannot believe this has happened again. I have got a gut feeling when this came back from Toshiba, and I am going out on a limb here mind. I think they created a recovery partition but forgot to put anything on the recovery partition...?
I have tried a restore, which is locked with BitLocker recovery website and logged into my account and got the recovery key and then entered the laborious long recovery key and it does not work either… So it looks as though I am going to have to return this back to Toshiba again. I haven’t done anything, I just turned it one and there was a message at the bottom of the screen BitLocker recovery and it comes up to enter the recovery key which I have and nothing. No system restore either which is odd because I know there are system recovery files on the tablet. Okay granted they are on a SD Memory card but nevertheless it should still work and nothing. This has to be one of the worst tablets that I have ever bought and to be honest with you. It’ll be the last as well. I will never buy a Toshiba laptop, notebook or tablet again. How can yesterday it was fine and then the following day it loses the doot.ini file… unable to recover I think I shall go to PC World and get this fixed and then just sell it… and count my loses.
Solved!
Go to Solution.

[RESOLVED]
This has been resolved so this topic can now be closed. I forgot when I received this back from Toshiba when they had to replace the board, I made a backup of the original Recovery partition on my Linux server and completely forgot about it. Easily done. I have restored the tablet back to factory settings and all working fine now.
Although, I might add... The Toshiba Encore is one of the worst tablets that I have ever experienced for performing system recovery back to factory settings. It took 5 attempts until I was successful. I have read topics on other forums where one guy took 10 failed attempts to recover his Windows 8 tablet. It kept going around and round in a look unlock with SecureBoot (which incidentally slowed down boot time, therefore I turned this off because it was annoying me)
Reimaging should be straightforward… not a headache where we are thrown into a look around and round until it finally lets you refresh your tablet.

Booting Windows 8.1, blinking underscore problem - with data already on partition.

So I updated my OS X software from the App Store (just a newer version of Yosemite than before) not too long ago. I wanted to boot into windows because I had certain data and applications on there I needed that have no version for Mac. So I tried booting, but when I boot the windows partition, nothing goes beyond the blinking underscore. I tried researching the problem; people have had the issue with the blinking underscore, but that is when they tried installing windows [there was no data on the line]. I however installed windows quite a while back and it is stacked with data that is pretty important for me. If there was a way for me to transfer the data to an external drive or the Mac partition as backup, I'd gladly just re-install windows. But there's data, I need the data on that partition. I know it's 100% possible to get the data, but I'm not sure anyone has found a way yet[?]. I've seen solutions that require things like gdisk, but the problem where that stuff would be required is a little different from mine; their partition wouldn't show as being bootable at all, so I didn't try that method (I'm just being cautious, Macs aren't my specialty ) However, in Disk Utility, the partition is labeled as disk0s4, which is similar to those other problems people have had in the past. If possible, can somebody point me in the right direction, or maybe even walk me through it? I'd greatly appreciate it. And if my problem does get solved, can someone suggest a safe way of updating OS X without it corrupting my data on other partitions?

Well the only update other than Yosemite would be Autodesk Sketchbook from the app store, but I doubt that it would have to do with bootcamp, so no, there were no updates other than a new version of Yosemite. And have testdisk, but do I need to search for lost partitions? That's an option I can see here. If I need to look specifically for NTFS headers, then maybe I'd needs steps on how to do that.
EDIT: I started running the process to look for lost partitions, and these are the first things that came up:
0 D HPFS - NTFS           2292342621 2292363587      20967
HPFS - NTFS           2292342621 2292363587      20967
check_FAT: can't read FAT boot sector
Invalid FAT boot sector
0 D FAT32                 3674955484 3685476902   10521419
FAT32                 3674955484 3685476902   10521419
check_FAT: can't read FAT boot sector
Invalid FAT boot sector
0 D FAT32                 2842018750 6075856388 3233837639
FAT32                 2842018750 6075856388 3233837639
Invalid NTFS or EXFAT boot
0 D HPFS - NTFS            987918603 1334613816 346695214
HPFS - NTFS            987918603 1334613816 346695214
HFS                   1334727563 1408127882   73400320
Stop
Is this what TestDisk is supposed to be trying to find anyways?
EDIT 2: It stopped and showed me this message. My total hard drive space is 750 GB including all partitions. I honestly have no Idea why the 4000 and 3000 GB are showing up
Disk /dev/disk0 - 750 GB / 698 GiB - 1465149168 sectors (RO)
The harddisk (750 GB / 698 GiB) seems too small! (< 4144 GB / 3860 GiB)
Check the harddisk size: HD jumpers settings, BIOS detection...
The following partitions can't be recovered:
     Partition               Start        End    Size in sectors
> FAT12                  962821072 2746820174 1783999103
   FAT32                 1249202674 1683653752 434451079
   HPFS - NTFS           1465147384 2692806640 1227659257
   HPFS - NTFS           1465147391 2692806647 1227659257
   HFS                   1465149124 1466418659    1269536
   FAT16 LBA             1789599502 6051012398 4261412897
   HPFS - NTFS           1839250623 4694089744 2854839122
   FAT16 <32M            2086827920 2365890772 279062853
   HPFS - NTFS           2290244103 2290265101      20999
   HPFS - NTFS           2292342621 2292363587      20967
[ Continue ]
913 GB / 850 GiB

Data recovery from corrupt boot partition

The boot partition on my MacBook running 10.7.6 has a corrupt volume structure and will not mount, much less boot. The recovery partition boots but really doesn't let me do anything. Disk Utility can't repair nor even complete verification. I have lots of images which I need to recover, so am looking for a utility which might help.
Everything was apparently ok until the failure and the drive hardware checked out ok, so I'm hopeful my files are recoverable. A week or so ago I optimized the volume with TechTool Pro and the directory with DiskWarrior, and last night attempted to sync 1Password on my iPad with 1Password for Mac. This did no t work, probably because of my unfamiliarity with the procedure, but seemed to do no damage. When I ran TTPro last night from its eDrive partition it reported a volume structure problem on the partition which I started to fix with the program but then cancelled the analysis and decided to use disk utility instead. Disk utility also reported a problem but stopped the verification with the instruction to do a repair which it again could not complete. When I rebooted the system partition would again not boot but this time I got grey screen with a message that the debugger had loaded and <panic>. A message box said power down and restart, but that only repeats the process.
I'm thinking of attempting to install a system on an external boot drive and accessing the corrupt partition with a data recovery utility. Any insights, ideas or shared experiences appreciated. Thanks in advance for any desperately needed help.

The safest thing to do here is to install a new disk in the system and do a clean install of OS X. From there, you can put your corrupted volume in an external USB enclosure and mount the file system to try and recover as much data as you can.
It's likely obvious now, but it's REALLY worth investing in a large-capacity external storage or Time Capsure to use with Time Machine. Backups are essential. Hardware always eventually dies. We all need an effective strategy to deal with that.
A long time ago, I was backing my Linux system up to 4mm DAT. When the inevitable HDD crash came, I thought I was ready. Unfortunately, I hadn't tested recovery from tape and I ended up losing everything. Which is to say, until you know you can restore, you don't even have a backup. I lost thousands upon thousands of photos of my kids growing up.
BTW, if it is essential that you recover as much as possible, consider taking the disk to a data recovery service. Be warned: It's expensive.

Screwed up MBR and boot partition, can't fix it [SOLVED]

Hi,
I have been defeated. Been trying to fix my computer the whole day and know I'm lost.
It's a long story, but my whole system got screwed when I tried installing windows on top of arch (I didn't get it to install, but I don't care anymore).
I was able to install GRUB2, I tried configuring it with grub.cfg , but when trying to boot it says it's missing kernel, boot partition has linux2.6, and I was using linux 3, I'm not really sure how to get the kernel I was using, should it be in my root partition? .
I'd like to get my system as it was before, I have root , var and home partitions and not sure how.
Thanks
Last edited by exuberant (2011-12-31 10:27:47)

Thanks for your reply.
I was using Arch, I last updated a few days ago.
The kernel that's on the boot partition is from a debian live cd I had laying around.
It is not possible I have more than one boot partition. I have 1 hard drive, but plenty of free space.
Windows wanted to use the start of my disk, so I used gparted to move 20 gb free space at the beginning. Creating a partition in the beginning also caused all partitions numbers to move up (sda2->sda3), when I gave up on windows, I tried moving everything forward like it was before, but it didn't work. Then I remembered that when installing grub, installers check for other mount points, but that didn't work, and instead overwrote my boot partition. So know I've got a temporary debian system installed(sda9) and a boot partition that won't boot Arch.
This is my fdisk output: sda5 is arch sd6 var and sd7 home
Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000080
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 12 96358+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 13 401 3124642+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda4 2744 14648 95619073 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 2744 4203 11719680 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 4239 5212 7815168 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 5227 10326 40957952 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 10393 13432 24411136 83 Linux
/dev/sda9 13432 14648 9764864 83 Linux

[SOLVED] My /home and /boot partition show on my desktop; not mounted

I'm guessing these two fie systems aren't mounted and the computer is seeing them as separate volumes?
So I guess I made a mistake during the install. This kind of explains a few things because when updating my kernel GRUB wasn't being updated as if the /boot partition wasn't mounted. I had to completely reinstall GRUB to have it point to the right kernel.
Is there a way to fix this and get these mounted how they need to be? Probably something with my fstab file?
When I installed I mounted my root, created /mnt/boot and /mnt/home, then mounted those to their own partitions that I had created.
I generated my fstab and checked it, and everything looked fine. I just don't know why everything else is just fine, but /boot and /home aren't mounted?
My partition scheme is GPT and looks like
/dev/sda1 -- bios boot
/dev/sda2 -- /boot
/dev/sda3 -- /
/dev/sda4 -- /swap
/dev/sda5 -- /home
I used UUIDs if that makes any difference.
Thanks.
Last edited by stevenmw (2014-11-06 16:41:12)

All right. I did what bstaletic said, and performed option 3 of his suggestions. My fstab file is restored but now when I start lightdm I get to my login screen, login, and have a black screen with just a cursor. All I did was run the install media, mount each partition (starting with root first). Then I turned my swap on.
After that, I ran
genfstab -U -p /mnt > fstab
I checked the fstab file, it looked like this
# /dev/sda3
UUID=c2d39ee2-e1c4-4989-9937-91fad2951d67 / ext4 rw,relatime,data=ordered 0 1
# /dev/sda2
UUID=9cd92417-c4c0-40c7-9de3-3b65b896e36b /boot ext2 rw,relatime 0 2
# /dev/sda5
UUID=db8633d3f-0cb2-49dc-9792-356ad37ace58 /home ext4 rw,relatime,data=ordered 0 2
# /dev/sda4
UUID=00d4f1cd-cc6c-4dd3-B4c7-67da333205ea none swap defaults 0 0
So I unmouted everything and turned swap off and went back into my system. The fstab file matched the output above. I started lightdm so i could get into xfce to see if the volumes were no longer on my desktop. However, now I get a black screen with a cursor. I let it sit for a while, but I ended up going into a tty and rebooting. Same issue. Black screen and cursor. I can see and login to lightdm just fine, but not my xfce DE.
I did try reinstalling lightDM and xfce4 and xfce4-goodies. Not xorg though. I'll try reinstallign it and see what that does.
Last edited by stevenmw (2014-10-15 20:01:51)

[SOLVED] Longwinded beginner - Dual-boot & partition questions

Hello,
I'm interested in installing Arch Linux alongside Windows XP (dual-boot). I have little previous linux experience, although I have rented some servers that have used it in the past, as well as compiling some stuff with it while at University (studying Computer Science). Nevertheless, I am relatively confident that if I can still boot into XP, I will be able to acccustomise myself and like the fact that this distribution seems to be hands-on and leaves a lot up to the user.
I've been reading the Beginner's Guide and the dual boot guide, and I would like to get started, however, I'm not going to go ahead with this until I am certain that I will be left with a system that can still boot into Windows XP. I assume that it'll take me a while to get to grips with Arch, and in the meantime it would be massively inconvenient if I couldn't work/play/etc...
What I already know
Anyway, currently I have a 250GB hard drive that I use for Windows (as well as 3 other hard drives full of stuff). I have partitioned the drive with Windows XP on it with gparted like so:
(in order)
UNALLOCATED 32GB
SDB1 (Windows XP) 50GB
SDB2 (Downloads) 150GB
I hope to use the unallocated space to hold linux (and then have access to my other windows drives in the future, using ntfs-3g), however, I am a little confused over what partitions I 'should' have and how large they should be, considering that I will use the OS to mainly develop, browse the web, listen to music, etc...
I was thinking:
/boot -- ext2 -- 100MB
/ -- ext4 -- 15GB
swap -- -- 1GB
/home -- ext4 -- 12GB
/var -- ReiserFS -- 4GB
Questions
• Is 30GB too little, even though most of my stuff is on other NTFS hard drives?
• How large should / be? I've read that it contains /bin, /dev, /etc and others. How do I know how much space these need? Am I misunderstanding things?
• Is a /var partition unnecessary? How large should it be?
• 10GB for /home, 1GB for swap, 100MB for /boot?
• Do I need a /tmp or /usr? This is a single-user machine, but I don't want it to get messy!
• I was thinking of giving /boot ext2, and /var ReiserFS, and then giving every other partition ext4. That okay?
• Do I need to set these partitions up when installing, or can I set them up in advance with gparted - it might be simpler.
• Due to already having 2 NTFS primary partitions on the hard disk, I presume that some of the above will need to be logical partitions in an extended partition? How is this done?
Once the partitions have been set up, and linux is installed, I presume it's just a matter of completing the rest of Part I of the guide, and then ammending /boot/grub/menu.lst to include 'Windows XP'? At that point I am able to restart Windows XP, and only delve into Arch when I want to continue with the configuration, fixing, and so on...
Sorry for the wall of text, and thanks for your patience. (:
Last edited by Bedtimes (2009-09-27 14:21:55)

That's the thing, I expect that I'm doing something wrong with the GRUB loader - and I admit my hard disk layout has been quite strange for a long time before installing linux.
Basically, it currently looks like this:
/dev/sda1 ntfs Music 250GB
/dev/sdb3 ext2 /boot 120MB
/dev/dsb4 extended
---- /dev/sdb5 linux-swap 1GB
---- /dev/sdb6 ext4 / 20GB
---- /dev/sdb7 ext4 /home 12GB
/dev/sdb1 ntfs Windows XP 50GB
/dev/sdb2 ntfs Downloads 150GB
/dev/sdc1 ntfs TV & Movies 950GB
• This list is in order that the entries appear on the hard disk, hence /boot is in the first 1024 cylinders of the hard disk, but as you can see the sdb numbers are actually in the chronological order that I created them.
• I used an extended partition with logical partitions inside since I had read that there was an issue with more than 4 partitions in a hard disk, and I already had 2 NTFS partitions.
• When it asked me to install GRUB to the MBR, I installed it to SDB as opposed to SDBx as it asked me to in the manual. This is the drive that contains /boot!
• I just managed to amend something in the menu.lst, in order that I can boot into Windows XP. Therefore my machine is not totally fucked up any more. (: Unfortunately, what I changed doesn't make sense to me, since I would have expected Windows XP to be on a different hard disk.
The contents of sdb3:
grub kernel26-fallback.img kernel26.img
lost+found System.map26 umlinuz26
When typing the command /sbin/blkid:
/dev/sda1: UUID="D0..." LABEL="Music" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sdb1: UUID="A8..." LABEL="Windows XP" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sdb2: UUID="557..." LABEL="Downloads" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sdb3: UUID="2676..." TYPE="ext2"
/dev/sdb5: UUID="0474..." TYPE="swap"
/dev/sdb6: UUID="0886..." TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sdb7: UUID="519becf..." TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sdc1: UUID="46AC59" LABEL="TV & Movies" TYPE="ntfs"
Inside /boot/grub/menu.lst:
timeout 5
default 0
color light-blue/black light-cyan/blue
# (1) Windows XP
title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
# (2) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux
root (hd1,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/0886... ro vga=773
initrd /boot/kernel26.img
# (3) Arch Linux (Fallback)
title Arch Linux (Fallback)
root (hd1,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/0886... ro vga=773
initrd /boot/kernel26-fallback.img
edit: I'm able to access all of the installation partitions with gparted-live's terminal (by mounting the devices I need to access into folders in my root folder), so is there anything else you want me to check/change in order to find my linux root/boot partition?
Last edited by Bedtimes (2009-09-27 12:54:24)

[SOLVED] boot partition does not output on genfstab.

I have installed Arch Linux 5 or 6 times and even had desktop environments. This is a first for this to happen. I do not have a way to copy and paste so I cannot reproduce all code.
I have 4 partitions. They are: /, home, boot, and swap. This is new for me and I am a bit confused. I did a search and found this, but no luck for me.
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=118114
Unfortunately, this is not helping me, or I just do not see it.
The root, the home and the swap partition output normally. It looks like this:
# /dev/sda2
UUID=**************************** / ext4 rw,relatime,data=ordered 0 1
# /dev/sda4
UUID=**************************** /home ext4 rw,relatime,data=ordered 0 2
# /dev/sda3
UUID=**************************** none swap defauults 0 0
The boot partition is just not there. So i did this:
lsblk -f | grep sda1
and appended the UUID from this output to the fstab and made a new fstab listing.
The boot partion of fstab reads:
# /dev/sda1
UUID=lots_of_alpha_numbers /boot ext4
My questions:
How do I know what options to add for the boot partition?
Why would cause this not to show up?
What options do I put for /boot - the same as / and /home (rq,relatime,data=ordered)?
What order should the /boot partion load? All other installs it did root as 1, home as 2 and boot as 2.
I have installed Arch Linux successfully at least 5 times and never had this issue. So I am wondering If manually adding this is covering up a bigger problem.
Last edited by AcousticBruce (2015-05-18 17:11:22)

I want to make clear what happened. Because I made the same mistake again, it dawned on me what is happeneing.. I went back to the wiki and found that it was there all along.
After creating the partitons I made 2 directories.
# mkdir -p /mnt/boot
# mkdir -p /mnt/home
And here is where MY mistake was...
# mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot
# mount /dev/sda4 /mnt/home
# mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
What happened, because of the ORDER that I mounted, the mount points of /mnt/boot and /mnt/home were comprimized and because they are subdirectories of /mnt. I got careless because I was getting good at installing Arch without the wiki and because I did not understand a fundemental of the system it was messed up.
I went back after I figured out my problem and saw that the mount and partitons wiki was useful and would have prevented if I was a bit more observent.
It clearly states: "The / (root) partition must be mounted first: this is because any directories such as /boot or /home that have separate partitions will have to be created in the root file system. The /mnt directory of the live system will be used to mount the root partition, and consequently all the other partitions will stem from there. If the root partition's name is sdxR, do:
This was a good learning experience for me.

(SOLVED) Dualboot Windows + Arch Linux (Windows boot partition)

Hi,
I have 4 partitions.
sda1: Windows boot partition (ntfs) - This has always been there
sda2: Windows Installation
sda3: HP_Tools - I need to keep this for warranty
sda4: Arch Installation
I want to use GRUB to have a dualboot option at startup. Do I need to install GRUB to the boot partition which is NTFS, this should be ext3 according to the tutorial.
Or can I just install grub on the Arch installation in the /boot folder?
Thanks already!
Last edited by AlexCogn (2012-10-02 15:02:10)

Scimmia wrote:
AlexCogn wrote:When I do that Windows just starts.
Then you didn't install grub to the MBR. Don't forget, installing the package isn't enough, you actually have to install grub to sda as a separate step.
So
# grub-install --target=i386-pc --recheck /dev/sda
# cp /usr/share/locale/en\@quot/LC_MESSAGES/grub.mo /boot/grub/locale/en.mo
and then
# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
I forgot the installation ... I'm trying it in half an hour, thanks already for you help guys!

Can't see boot partition using Nautilus [SOLVED]

I have a separate boot partition, ext2, sda10, for my Arch install. However, I can't browse in with Nautilus from my Arch install. I can with my Ubuntu installs on this computer though. I have tried with both regular and root users.
My Arch install uses sda10,11,12 for boot, root, and home.
[jeff@Arch2009p2 ~]$ mount
/dev/sda11 on / type ext3 (rw)
none on /dev type ramfs (rw,relatime)
none on /proc type proc (rw,relatime)
none on /sys type sysfs (rw,relatime)
/dev/sda10 on /boot type ext2 (rw)
/dev/sda12 on /home type ext3 (rw)
/dev/sda6 on /media/sda6 type ext3 (rw)
/dev/sda7 on /media/sda7 type ext3 (rw)
/dev/sda8 on /media/sda8 type ext3 (rw)
/dev/sda9 on /media/sda9 type ext3 (rw)
none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/jeff/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=jeff)
Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?
Last edited by jeff story (2009-06-24 20:57:08)

sda10 is already mounted.
[root@Arch2009p2 jeff]# mount /dev/sda10 /mnt
mount: /dev/sda10 already mounted or /mnt busy
mount: according to mtab, /dev/sda10 is already mounted on /mnt
[jeff@Arch2009p2 ~]$ mount
/dev/sda11 on / type ext3 (rw)
none on /dev type ramfs (rw,relatime)
none on /proc type proc (rw,relatime)
none on /sys type sysfs (rw,relatime)
/dev/sda10 on /boot type ext2 (rw)
/dev/sda12 on /home type ext3 (rw)
/dev/sda6 on /media/sda6 type ext3 (rw)
/dev/sda7 on /media/sda7 type ext3 (rw)
/dev/sda8 on /media/sda8 type ext3 (rw)
/dev/sda9 on /media/sda9 type ext3 (rw)
none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/jeff/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=jeff)
/dev/sda10 on /mnt type ext2 (rw)
Last edited by jeff story (2009-06-24 20:35:03)

Boot partition wiped out - how to recreate grub's files [SOLVED]

Boot partition got wiped out on my system.
/dev/sda1 #root
/dev/sda2 #boot
/dev/sda3 #swap
/dev/sda4 #home
I'm in an ubuntu live CD and doing this via VNC. I am chrooted into /dev/sda1 (arch) and I have mounted /boot and regenerated the kernel images. There is a /boot/grub/menu.lst and a /boot/grub/system.map but that's it. If I look at my functional system (another pc) I see a ton of extra grub files:
$ ls /boot/grub
fat_stage1_5 stage1 xfs_stage1_5
ffs_stage1_5 minix_stage1_5 stage2
default iso9660_stage1_5 more.lst stage2_eltorito
device.map jfs_stage1_5 reiserfs_stage1_5 ufs2_stage1_5
e2fs_stage1_5 menu.lst splash.xpm.gz vstafs_stage1_5
How can I get them back? I thought that a pacman -S grub would do it, but nothing...??
Last edited by graysky (2010-05-16 16:51:10)

*!@* I must have read that page 3 times over and missed that 3 times over. Thank you!
EDIT: made the wiki article a little more obvious!
Last edited by graysky (2010-05-16 16:55:41)

REFInd: how to boot an image on another partition [solved]

How can I direct a rEFInd menuentry to boot image files that reside on another partition?
Example:
sda
|--sda1 vfat (efi partition)
|--sda2 ext4 (boot)
|--sda3 btrfs (root)
I don't want to copy my kernel images to my efi partition (sda1). I want them to stay on my "old" /boot partition (sda2). How can I modify the following refind.conf entry to reflect this?
menuentry "Arch Custom" {
icon EFI/refind/icons/os_arch.icns
ostype Linux
loader /vmlinuz-linux-custom
initrd /initramfs-linux-custom.img
options "root=/dev/sda3 rootfstype=btrfs rw systemd.unit=graphical.target"
I know this is possible because the autodetection option in rEFInd does it automatically Thanks!
Last edited by graysky (2013-10-27 23:23:10)

My /EFI/refind/refind.conf
timeout 3
textonly
textmode 1024
resolution 1366 768
showtools mok_tool,about,reboot,shutdown,exit,firmware
scan_driver_dirs EFI/tools/drivers_x64
scanfor manual,internal,external,optical
scan_delay 0
# also_scan_dirs UEFISYS:EFI/arch/core,UEFISYS:EFI/arch/mainline
dont_scan_dirs UEFISYS:EFI/boot
scan_all_linux_kernels
default_selection "Arch Linux Core Kernel"
#include manual.conf
menuentry "Arch Linux Core Kernel" {
icon /EFI/refind/icons/os_arch.icns
volume UEFISYS
loader /EFI/arch/core/vmlinuz-arch-core.efi
initrd /EFI/arch/core/initramfs-arch-core.img
options "root=PARTUUID=6f44c56d-d5c2-41ca-8c54-873d8dc5e5e3 rootfstype=ext4 rw loglevel=6 printk.time=y pcie_aspm=force i915.i915_enable_rc6=1 nouveau.nofbaccel=1 add_efi_memmap systemd.unit=graphical.target"
ostype Linux
graphics off
menuentry "Arch Linux Core Kernel Fallback" {
icon /EFI/refind/icons/os_arch.icns
volume UEFISYS
loader /EFI/arch/core/vmlinuz-arch-core.efi
initrd /EFI/arch/core/initramfs-arch-core-fallback.img
options "root=PARTUUID=6f44c56d-d5c2-41ca-8c54-873d8dc5e5e3 rootfstype=ext4 rw loglevel=6 printk.time=y pcie_aspm=force i915.i915_enable_rc6=1 nouveau.nofbaccel=1 add_efi_memmap systemd.unit=graphical.target"
ostype Linux
graphics off
menuentry "Arch Linux Mainline Kernel" {
icon /EFI/refind/icons/os_arch.icns
volume UEFISYS
loader /EFI/arch/mainline/vmlinuz-arch-mainline.efi
initrd /EFI/arch/mainline/initramfs-arch-mainline.img
options "root=PARTUUID=6f44c56d-d5c2-41ca-8c54-873d8dc5e5e3 rootfstype=ext4 rw loglevel=6 printk.time=y pcie_aspm=force i915.i915_enable_rc6=1 nouveau.nofbaccel=1 add_efi_memmap systemd.unit=graphical.target"
ostype Linux
graphics off
menuentry "Arch Linux Mainline Kernel Fallback" {
icon /EFI/refind/icons/os_arch.icns
volume UEFISYS
loader /EFI/arch/mainline/vmlinuz-arch-mainline.efi
initrd /EFI/arch/mainline/initramfs-arch-mainline-fallback.img
options "root=PARTUUID=6f44c56d-d5c2-41ca-8c54-873d8dc5e5e3 rootfstype=ext4 rw loglevel=6 printk.time=y pcie_aspm=force i915.i915_enable_rc6=1 nouveau.nofbaccel=1 add_efi_memmap systemd.unit=graphical.target"
ostype Linux
graphics off
menuentry "Arch Linux x86_64 Archboot" {
icon /EFI/refind/icons/os_arch.icns
volume UEFISYS
loader /EFI/arch/archboot/vmlinuz-archboot.efi
initrd /EFI/arch/archboot/initramfs-archboot.img
options "rw loglevel=7 efi_no_storage_paranoia add_efi_memmap"
ostype Linux
graphics off
menuentry "UEFI Shell x86_64 v2" {
icon /EFI/refind/icons/os_hwtest.icns
volume UEFISYS
loader /EFI/tools/shellx64_v2.efi
graphics off
menuentry "UEFI Shell x86_64 v1" {
icon /EFI/refind/icons/os_hwtest.icns
volume UEFISYS
loader /EFI/tools/shellx64_v1.efi
graphics off
My /boot/refind_linux.conf
"Boot into Graphics mode" "root=PARTUUID=6f44c56d-d5c2-41ca-8c54-873d8dc5e5e3 rootfstype=ext4 rw loglevel=6 printk.time=y pcie_aspm=force i915.i915_enable_rc6=1 nouveau.nofbaccel=1 add_efi_memmap systemd.unit=graphical.target initrd=/initramfs-linux-fallback.img initrd=/initramfs-linux-mainline-fallback.img"
"Boot into Terminal mode" "root=PARTUUID=6f44c56d-d5c2-41ca-8c54-873d8dc5e5e3 rootfstype=ext4 rw loglevel=6 printk.time=y pcie_aspm=force i915.i915_enable_rc6=1 nouveau.nofbaccel=1 add_efi_memmap systemd.unit=multi-user.target initrd=/initramfs-linux-fallback.img initrd=/initramfs-linux-mainline-fallback.img"
"Boot into Rescue mode" "root=PARTUUID=6f44c56d-d5c2-41ca-8c54-873d8dc5e5e3 rootfstype=ext4 rw loglevel=6 printk.time=y pcie_aspm=force i915.i915_enable_rc6=1 nouveau.nofbaccel=1 add_efi_memmap systemd.unit=rescue.target initrd=/initramfs-linux-fallback.img initrd=/initramfs-linux-mainline-fallback.img"

[SOLVED]Should /boot partition be formated in ext2 or ext4?

I used to format /boot partition in ext2 when installing Arch Linux.
Can /boot partition be formatted in ext4?
Is there any advantage when using ext4 over ext2 in /boot ?
I heared that ext2 is more stable than ext4.
Last edited by yuanzhi (2012-12-22 06:01:10)

You can use anything you like for a separate /boot partition, provided both Linux and your boot loader can read it -- ext2, ext4, XFS, HFS+, FAT, etc. Some of these filesystems do have limitations, though. For instance, since FAT doesn't support symbolic links, you can't do something like link a kernel with a generic name to one with a more specific name. I've seen some configurations that rely on such things, and they wouldn't work with FAT.
As to ext2fs vs. ext4fs specifically, ext4fs won't have many advantages; its journal and other advanced features will be of little importance on such a small partition. Ext4fs might be a tiny bit faster, especially if you've got an EFI-based system and are using the EFI filesystem drivers, but this effect will usually be so small that it qualifies as negligible. I'm not sure about reliability, but I'd expect that any reliability problems with ext4fs would be pretty well eliminated by now.
Personally, I've been using ext2fs on most of my systems' /boot partitions until recently. I've begun using FAT or ReiserFS more recently, but only because I'm using EFI and am loading my kernels off of these partitions. In this environment, FAT is better because it's the EFI's native filesystem, and ReiserFS has a speed advantage over ext2fs or ext4fs because of quirks of the add-on EFI drivers for these filesystems. These are rather specialized reasons to favor these filesystems, though. FWIW, Fedora, which uses a separate /boot partition by default, has been using ext4fs on its /boot for a while now.

[SOLVED] Setting default boot partition on Macbook Pro w/ no dual boot

I'm trying to install Arch on a new Macbook Pro 13", but I fear I've become somewhat confused by all the instructions in the wiki.
I have no interest in dual booting, so I left the mac's existing boot and recovery partitions alone and set up a new filesystem and boot partition. I installed rEFInd on the new boot partition and ran refind-install successfully. Installing Arch seemed to go perfectly as well.
My issue is that when I reboot the computer, it still tries to boot from the original boot partition, which fails because OS X is no longer installed. Does anyone have anyone idea how I boot from the rEFInd partition instead?
Last edited by whitebrice (2015-05-31 04:31:21)

Thanks for the quick reply. I tried deleting the original boot partition, but I still had my problem. I ended up wiping all the existing partitions and trying again with gummiboot instead of rEFInd. It works now.

How can I access my user folder on a second boot partition?

Hi there. Thank you for reading this. I am at a bit of a loss although I have searched several forums to find someone having the same problem:
I use my Macbook Pro in the office and at home. To keep things strictly apart and have to separate Time Machine backup procedures, I have divided my harddrive into two boot partitions ('office' and 'private') and installed Mountain Lion on both of them. Now occasionally when I am at the office I would like to access my user folder on 'private' to retrieve a file from the documents folder there (e.g. a paper I gave in my free time but would like to send to a colleague). Now although I see the 'private' volume, and the other user folder and the Documents folder in it with a red 'No Access' badge, even when I set read/write permissions via Command-I > Permissions for my current account, I do not see any files in it apart from Microsoft User Data. I have tried enabling the root user but with the sam result.
Do I really have to shut down the computer and boot with the 'private' boot volume in order to access the files on 'private'>user?
Looking forward to your suggestions! Thank you in advance!
Christian

To solve this issue permanently, is to first disconnect both TimeMachine drives.
Boot into one partition and consider it history, make a note of everything, apps, export bookmarks, serial keys and files to a regular external drive. (non TimeMachine)
If on a hard drive, consider the first partition for performance, the second one is going to be slower. (SSD no need)
Next what you do is boot into the first partition and use Disk Utility to erase (with zero option if a hard drive) the other partition. Then use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the first partition to the second. (should be about equal sizes or tweak before cloning.)
Repair permissions on both partitions in Disk Utility.
Next boot into the second partition and install/uninstall apps and files. etc and set it backup up the way you had it.
Once your sure, then update TimeMachine for each one.
Now you will be able to easily access the other bootable partition as long as your logged into the same account name on the first partition., in other words you can access the same named account on both partitions and trade files without rebooting.
Because it's a clone, you have the same access privileges to the files on the other partition.
If your a power user, your going to find bootable clones are a much superior option than TimeMachine
Most commonly used backup methods

Lost data on /boot partition [solved]

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