On 3/10/06, Mark Knecht <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 3/10/06, Sergio Polini <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Mark Knecht: > > > Well...I did my best, but it wasn't good enough. The machine no > > > longer boots to any level that a user could use. I'm told there are > > > lots of messages on the screen about being unable to find files. > > > (/usr/bin, /usr/sbin sort of things...) > > > > That happened to me too ;-) > > But the reason was quickly clear: I had deleted /usr instead > > of /usr/*! > > Remember: > > OK, so far I cannot get into the machine so I don't know how to double > check that but I'm pretty sure I didn't do this. > > The issue in and around these instructions, for me was that: > > 1) I'm in a completely out of disk space situation > 2) I'm trying to move /usr > 3) /usr includes /usr/bin and /usr/sbin which is where all commands > are to basically use the machine and make the changes. (mv, cp, ls and > all the normal stuff.) > > so I > > 1) Copied everything to the new partition > 2) Removed everything from the original /usr except /usr/bin and > /usr/lib. The only copy of /usr/sbin is on the new partition. /usr/lib > had to remain for me to use vim to edit fstab. > 3) The new partition was labeled using e2label > 4) fstab was edited to mount the new partition at the existing /usr > direcotry which still contained /usr/bin and /usr/lib > 5) As a backup, since I had removed most of /usr to create space I now > made a new directory /usrBACKUP and placed a copy of what was left in > /usr there so I could get to it if I needed to. > 6) Unmounted /mnt/usr_temp and rebooted. > > The messages (I'm told over the phone by a 78 year old man who is hard > of hearing) are in and around not being able to find /usr/sbin. I > don't know what they really say as we didn't try to get that detailed. > > He has decided to ship the machine to me via FedEx and I'll have to > fix it here when it arrives. He didn't want to mess with Knoppix or > the Gentoo install disk as he felt it was way beyond what he could do. > > Again, thanks for the ideas below, but since the machine is 350 miles > away it's hard to do the experiements below. I'll do them when it > arrives next week. > > Cheers, > Mark > > > > > > 9. delete the old /usr directory to free the unused space: > > > cd /mnt/something/usr > > > rm -rf * > > > NB: do not delete /usr itself, just its contents, as /usr is the > > > mount point for the new partition; > > > > Let us suppose that your /etc/fstab looks like: > > > > /dev/hda1 /boot <type> <opts> <dump/pass> > > /dev/hda2 / <type> <opts> <dump/pass> > > /dev/hda3 /usr <type> <opts> <dump/pass> > > > > The first and simplest try: reboot from a livecd, then: > > > > mount /dev/hda2 /mnt/something > > ls /mnt/something/usr > > > > If /mnt/something/usr doesn't exist, then: > > > > mkdir /mnt/something/usr > > reboot > > > > You could check that the new /usr partition is there, before > > rebooting: > > > > mount /dev/hda3 /mnt/something_else > > ls /mnt/something_else > > > > The old /usr contents should be there. Why not? > > So, if your reboot doesn't work, reboot again from a livecd and > > check /etc/fstab. > > > > Let me/us know! > > > > Sergio
Hi Sergio, OK, the machine arrived here about an hour ago overnight express. It's now up and running. The mistake was mine, but I think it wasn't something that was very clearly warned about in the online docs, or at least I don't remember being warned about this. I created a new partition and copied all the information over. I labeled the partition USR using e2label and then carefully copied an existing line from elsewhere in the fstab file and changed the specifics to mount the partition, or so I thought. When the machine arrived here and I booted the new partition was not mounted, but I was able to immediately mount it by hand. Inspecting the fstab file quickly revealed that the line I had copied from elsewhere in the fstab file had the options 'noauto,noatime' sort of line. I removed noauto, rebooted, and the machine appears to be working fine. Since the machine is here I'll do a thorough set of updates and hopefully get it shipped out again on Monday. Live and learn! Thanks for your help! Thanks, Mark -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
