/home partition no longer recognized

[cwsnyder]

Installed Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) with a separate /home partition, 201009 version. /home partition was recognized both initially and when rebooted. Performed the suggested updates using the Mint Update software and following reboot, the UUID for the /home partition is no longer mounted, with the usual errors following. I re-partitioned/formatted/installed again with the same results.

Since this is a rolling release, it may not be a serious bug. My next trial is to install with only / and swap (/home in the / partition) to see how that works.

[cwsnyder (carlwsnyder)]

Rechecked. After re-installation with only / and swap partitions, I copied my /home/cws contents from backup back to my LMDE install, did the 440+ updates, and rebooted. Everything seems to be working correctly now.

This may be the suggested work around until a final fix is in the works.

[cwsnyder (carlwsnyder)]

I forgot to add this information, possibly it may have affected my problem:

My system has 2 hard disks, a PATA 200G and a SATA 500G.
$ sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 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: 0xf576c796

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 20417 163997696 83 Linux #LMDE (old /home was sda2)
/dev/sda3 20418 60149 319147290 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 20418 21268 6835626 83 Linux #Debian Lenny /
/dev/sda6 21269 21598 2650693+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris # swap shared between LMDE and Debian
/dev/sda7 21599 60149 309660876 83 Linux # Debian /home

Disk /dev/sdb: 200.0 GB, 200049647616 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24321 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: 0xedaaedaa

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 12161 97683196+ 7 HPFS/NTFS # Windows XP Media Center Edition
/dev/sdb2 12162 24322 97676288 7 HPFS/NTFS # Windows 7
$
sda2 was a primary partition when it existed and was used as LMDE /home.

[Clement Lefebvre (clementlefebvre)]

Sorry, I don't really understand the problem... after the update, was the fstab still referring to your /home partition? What errors were you seeing during mount?

* Adding this bug to the December LMDE milestone to keep an eye on it.

[cwsnyder (carlwsnyder)]

After the update, the UUID on fstab did not match the UUID of my /home
partition. I don't understand how that happened, but that was the effect
which caused my problem. I didn't understand it, I am just reporting it.

On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 5:31 AM, Clement Lefebvre <email address hidden>wrote:

> Sorry, I don't really understand the problem... after the update, was
> the fstab still referring to your /home partition? What errors were you
> seeing during mount?
>
> * Adding this bug to the December LMDE milestone to keep an eye on it.
>
> ** Changed in: linuxmint
> Milestone: None => lmde-201012
>
> ** Changed in: linuxmint
> Assignee: (unassigned) => Clement Lefebvre (clementlefebvre)
>
> --
> /home partition no longer recognized
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/658680
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>
> Status in The Linux Mint Distribution: New
>
> Bug description:
> Installed Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) with a separate /home partition,
> 201009 version. /home partition was recognized both initially and when
> rebooted. Performed the suggested updates using the Mint Update software
> and following reboot, the UUID for the /home partition is no longer mounted,
> with the usual errors following. I re-partitioned/formatted/installed again
> with the same results.
>
> Since this is a rolling release, it may not be a serious bug. My next
> trial is to install with only / and swap (/home in the / partition) to see
> how that works.
>
> To unsubscribe from this bug, go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/linuxmint/+bug/658680/+subscribe
>

[Clement Lefebvre (clementlefebvre)]

I don't really know what to do with this bug report. Something obviously happened, yet I'm not able to reproduce the issue, and so I can't really do anything about this. I'll mark it as incomplete.

[cwsnyder (carlwsnyder)]

Further comment: I have had the same or similar problem occur with an update from Ubuntu 10.10 on an Acer Aspire One ZG5 netbook. Following the update I got an error /dev/disk/by-uuid/3d801f7b-2fe1-4a86-8391-3ff37d63de46 does not exist! Dropping to shell!

I had run UNR 9.04, 9.10, Ubuntu 32-bit 386 9.10, 10.04 with updates and no problems on this netbook. On my second update of 10.10 32-bit 386, Ubuntu failed to boot, stopping at the Syslinux line. I finally got around to booting the recovery option and received the above error.

Attempting to boot from a freshly installed Ubuntu 10.10 PNY 2G thumb drive results in the system freezing at the Syslinux line, never gets to GRUB.

My Debian Lenny install on the same desktop hasn't given me any problems since 2008, and I did a version update to Debian Squeeze (testing) about a month ago, again with no problems.

Further Googling seems to indicate a kernel error! My mistake. I just seem to have gotten bit by similar problems on different machines and distributions. udev seems to be the culprit in both cases.

I guess I need to learn more about the kernel than I ever cared to learn. My machine, although over 4 years old, does not seem to be fully GNU/Linux kernel compatible, and I don't know how to determine what components are giving me the problem.

Further notes:
* My eMachines T5212 with 2G RAM, nVidia GeForce 6200 PCIe video has been __extremely__ kernel sensitive, able to boot without VM only Debian or Mandriva derived kernels of the many distributions I have tried since December 2007.
* My monitor EDID (Etronix 1701B) does not seem to be read correctly, I have to use a custom xorg.conf file to get resolutions above 1024x768.
* I installed LMDE because Ubuntu 10.04 and Ubuntu 10.10 did not boot when installed on my desktop, although the Live CDs seemed to work OK.
**LMDE and Debian Squeeze don't seem to be giving me further problems. Windows XP and Windows 7 ditto. I am quad-booting this machine (Windows on the 200G PATA drive, Linux on the 500G SATA drive) and my only other problem seems to be with the PC Angels modified Windows XP install which will only ever boot as the first drive/partition on this machine. I use the BIOS boot device selection before I boot from the XP, while Win 7 boots fine from GRUB 1 or 2. Win XP would boot from GRUB 1 (didn't try it with 2) with the PATA drive selected as the boot drive, but would trash the MBR on some updates, requiring Windows re-installation & GRUB re-installation. At least Win 7 co-exists with Win XP with no problems yet.

I was able to re-install Ubuntu 10.10 with separate / and /home partitions from DVD.

[Matt Carlsen (mattcarlsen)]

I had a similar problem with LMDE 201012 64 bit.

I made a separate /home and it worked fine over several updates reboot cycles, then at boot was unable to mount my home partition, with a does not exist.
upon booting into another distro and checking the fstab from LMDE I found that the fstab listed the root partition with a UUID, then after the cdrom enry it listed the root partition again, this time with /dev/sda1, then it listed the /home partition as /dev/sda2 and finally swap as /dev/sda3.

I have just changed the fstab to use the relevent UUID's and I'm going to reboot into LMDE and see what happens.

I'll report back soon.

[Matt Carlsen (mattcarlsen)]

checking in from LMDE now just to confirm that changing fstab from /dev/* identifiers to the relevent UUID fixed the problem

[runbei (gbeinhorn)]

I had the same problem with a home-built desktop with two drives, SATA and IDE (like cwsnyder, see above). Perhaps this description will help:

I received the following messages in this sequence after installing LMDE 64 201012 on a home-built PC with Biostar 790GA A2+ motherboard, AMD Phenom 9850 4-core, and 4 GB RAM:

[quote]Could not update .ICEauthority file /home/runbei/.ICEauthority[/quote]

[quote]There is a problem with the configuration server (/usr/lib/libgconf-2-4/gconf-sanity-check2 exited with status 256)[/quote]

[quote]The panel encountered a problem while loading "0AFIID:6x10ME_MintMenu". Do you want to delete the applet from your configuration?[/quote]

(Problem recurs on reboot whether I choose Delete or Don't Delete.)

[quote]Nautilus could not create the following required folders: /home/runbei/Desktop, /home/runbei/.nautilus. Please create these folders, or set permissions such that nautilus can create them.[/quote]

Obviously, there's no MintMenu or Desktop at install.

[Later:] I may have found another hint. When I try booting in recovery mood it doesn't recognize my home partition. The partitions I have are:

1. A Windows partition
2. An install of Mint Julia 64 with 2 primary partitions, swap temporarily absent, deleted and used to create...
3. An extended partition created to test the install of LMDE 64; it has 3 virtual partitions for /, swap, and home.

The home partition is /dev/sda7. On boot the following message appears:

[quote]Mounting local filesystems...mount: special device /dev/sda7 does not exist
failed[/quote]

Not sure the fact I'm using an extended partition + virtual partitions matters, as I get exactly the same errors when I install LMDE 64 to 3 primary partitions.

p.s. I wonder if part of the problem is that I have one SATA hard disk which I use for Windows and Linux installs, and an older PATA/IDE disk that I use for data. I've heard this can cause problems for Debian-based distros. ? I'm vaguely aware that in the past sometimes the sda and sdb designations seem to be reversed depending on what program is looking at the disk (gparted, installers, etc.).

Just for the heck of it, I'll replace the 64-bit install with 32-bit LMDE and see what happens. [Later:] Ah, so. The 32-bit installer doesn't let me choose the sdb disk for installation. So much for that.

[Later:] Just to include this in the record in case it helps the developers at the next LMDE go-round: I deleted the extended partition where LMDE 64 was installed. I then tried to install it in primary partitions, to see if LMDE could find my /home folder there. But I was unable to do that because the LMDE 64 installed couldn't see my SATA disk (sda) where I install operating systems. Funny, it was able to see the disk when I installed on an extended partition. Same error as LMDE 32, which also can't see that SATA disk.

[runbei (gbeinhorn)]

p.s. Someone in the LMDE forum provided the following suggestion, which I have pasted here in hopes it will help the developers resolve the issue:

Did you try chown in recovery mode? I have my home on a separate partition and I get that error every time I install.

Examples:
chown root /u Change the owner of /u to "root".
chown root:staff /u Likewise, but also change its group to "staff".
chown -hR root /u Change the owner of /u and subfiles to "root".

try:

Code: Select all
    su
    password:
    chown -hR youname /home/nameofhome

[cwsnyder (carlwsnyder)]

I haven't had any problems with LMDE since I changed to a unified / and
/home on same partition, so I am staying with it for now.

I HAVE noticed another problem which concerns Linux and the mix of SATA and
PATA drives. I installed Ubuntu 10.10 in WUBI installation in Windows 7,
mostly because Ubuntu hasn't been able to install since the update to 10.04
on this computer. That was the original impetus to switch from Ubuntu to
LMDE. To my surprise, I was successful in installing the WUBI on my PATA
drive (Windows drive), but the version of GRUB used for WUBI only works if
the PATA drive is chosen as the first drive in the boot process. I can boot
Windows 7 successfully from GRUB on my SATA LMDE drive, but not WUBI or the
XP installation on the same drive.

I haven't tried again to install Ubuntu on the SATA drive, but I had tried
to install separately 10.04 and 10.10 when they came out and failed,
stalling indefinitely during the boot process with a blank screen, although
the 'Live' version of both worked fine.

When I installed LMDE, I had an installation of Debian 5 'Lenny' in an
extended partition on the SATA drive, along with the shared swap partition.
 LMDE's / and /home partitions were in the non-extended portion of the SATA
drive and the present combined partition is in the non-extended portion of
the drive with swap still in the extended portion.

Since that time, I have upgraded my Debian installation to Debian 6
'Squeeze' with no problems on the Debian install.

On Tue, Feb 8, 2011 at 5:04 PM, runbei <email address hidden> wrote:

> p.s. Someone in the LMDE forum provided the following suggestion, which
> I have pasted here in hopes it will help the developers resolve the
> issue:
>
> Did you try chown in recovery mode? I have my home on a separate
> partition and I get that error every time I install.
>
> Examples:
> chown root /u Change the owner of /u to "root".
> chown root:staff /u Likewise, but also change its group to "staff".
> chown -hR root /u Change the owner of /u and subfiles to "root".
>
> try:
>
> Code: Select all
> su
> password:
> chown -hR youname /home/nameofhome
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/658680
>
> Title:
> /home partition no longer recognized
>
> Status in The Linux Mint Distribution:
> Incomplete
>
> Bug description:
> Installed Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) with a separate /home
> partition, 201009 version. /home partition was recognized both
> initially and when rebooted. Performed the suggested updates using
> the Mint Update software and following reboot, the UUID for the /home
> partition is no longer mounted, with the usual errors following. I
> re-partitioned/formatted/installed again with the same results.
>
> Since this is a rolling release, it may not be a serious bug. My next
> trial is to install with only / and swap (/home in the / partition) to
> see how that works.
>
> To unsubscribe from this bug, go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/linuxmint/+bug/658680/+subscribe
>

[Matt Carlsen (mattcarlsen)]

so when i said go into your fstab and change the text from

for example

/dev/sda2 /home ext3 rw,errors=remount-ro 0 0

to

UUID=06331a9a-22f9-4dee-9993-abf33ef4e8dd /home ext3 rw,errors=remount-ro 0 0

which part did you not understand?

[cwsnyder (carlwsnyder)]

When I had the problem with not finding my /home partition, the fstab UUID
for /home pointed to a non-existent partition, when I checked from my Debian
installation or a Live CD. I hadn't worked with fstab very much at that
point, so when I changed the UUID to the Debian indicated UUID for my new
/home and was unsuccessful, I abandoned that approach and re-installed the
LMDE installation with only / and swap. That worked, so I stopped at that
point.

On Sat, Feb 12, 2011 at 1:51 AM, Matt Carlsen <email address hidden>wrote:

> so when i said go into your fstab and change the text from
>
> for example
>
> /dev/sda2 /home ext3 rw,errors=remount-ro 0 0
>
> to
>
> UUID=06331a9a-22f9-4dee-9993-abf33ef4e8dd /home ext3
> rw,errors=remount-ro 0 0
>
>
> which part did you not understand?
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/658680
>
> Title:
> /home partition no longer recognized
>
> Status in The Linux Mint Distribution:
> Incomplete
>
> Bug description:
> Installed Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) with a separate /home
> partition, 201009 version. /home partition was recognized both
> initially and when rebooted. Performed the suggested updates using
> the Mint Update software and following reboot, the UUID for the /home
> partition is no longer mounted, with the usual errors following. I
> re-partitioned/formatted/installed again with the same results.
>
> Since this is a rolling release, it may not be a serious bug. My next
> trial is to install with only / and swap (/home in the / partition) to
> see how that works.
>
> To unsubscribe from this bug, go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/linuxmint/+bug/658680/+subscribe
>

[Matthew Piatkowski (progone)]

I went ahead and reinstalled Ubuntu 10.10, because whenever I did as you
said, it still didn't work. When I went back to FSTAB after the next
reboot, the changes I did as you mentioned was still there. Something else
is an issue, lots of bad sectors on that harddrive.

On Sat, Feb 12, 2011 at 1:51 AM, Matt Carlsen <email address hidden>wrote:

> so when i said go into your fstab and change the text from
>
> for example
>
> /dev/sda2 /home ext3 rw,errors=remount-ro 0 0
>
> to
>
> UUID=06331a9a-22f9-4dee-9993-abf33ef4e8dd /home ext3
> rw,errors=remount-ro 0 0
>
>
> which part did you not understand?
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to Linux
> Mint.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/658680
>
> Title:
> /home partition no longer recognized
>
> Status in The Linux Mint Distribution:
> Incomplete
>
> Bug description:
> Installed Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) with a separate /home
> partition, 201009 version. /home partition was recognized both
> initially and when rebooted. Performed the suggested updates using
> the Mint Update software and following reboot, the UUID for the /home
> partition is no longer mounted, with the usual errors following. I
> re-partitioned/formatted/installed again with the same results.
>
> Since this is a rolling release, it may not be a serious bug. My next
> trial is to install with only / and swap (/home in the / partition) to
> see how that works.
>
>
>

--
Matthew Piatkowski

<email address hidden>
www.nickybockers.deviantart.com/gallery

[Matt Carlsen (mattcarlsen)]

sorry cwsnyder and progone, my comment was directed at runbei.

if upon boot you get a message similar to [quote]Mounting local filesystems...mount: special device /dev/sda7 does not exist
failed[/quote]

it means your fstab is in the format of

/dev/* /home ext3 etc....

all the below erros happen because your lmde boots without a /home.

[quote]Could not update .ICEauthority file /home/runbei/.ICEauthority[/quote]

[quote]There is a problem with the configuration server (/usr/lib/libgconf-2-4/gconf-sanity-check2 exited with status 256)[/quote]

[quote]The panel encountered a problem while loading "0AFIID:6x10ME_MintMenu". Do you want to delete the applet from your configuration?[/quote]

(Problem recurs on reboot whether I choose Delete or Don't Delete.)

[quote]Nautilus could not create the following required folders: /home/runbei/Desktop, /home/runbei/.nautilus. Please create these folders, or set permissions such that nautilus can create them.[/quote]

I'm not sure whether this is because support for fstab using /dev/* ids has been removed, or because the device name of your home partition is changing during the boot process.

however if you use blkid to identify the UUID of your /home and use this in your fstab, LMDE will recognise your home partition and all will be well. the UUID is unique to the partition and will not change even when you change which physical port the drive is connected to.