I posted this in a newsgroup, but since it solved a problem
I had earlier asked about here, I thought the solution
might be of interest to someone on the list:
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- From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sat Jul 24 21:44:48 1999
- Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 21:25:05 -0600
- From: Richard Myers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
- Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.setup
- Subject: Re: mount problem-- still not working
On 22 Jul 1999, Colin Watson wrote:
> In article <7n6qum$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> >Colin Watson ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
> >: Have you tried using the full syntax for mount, that is:
> >: mount -t ext2 /dev/hda9 /mnt/win2
[...]
>
> Does creating a completely new partition and mounting it work?
No. But I solved the problem-- it was a lot more stubborn than I had
expected.
I went looking for a partition table problem when I saw in a
help file or man page that logical partitions should start
numbering at 5-- mine started at 6. (I had wondered about this,
but decided earlier that I didn't know enough to consider it
a problem.)
Somehow I had a "hidden" partition, /dev/hda5, which was only a
fraction of a megabyte. It was so tiny that fdisk, partition magic,
and even Linux itself did not see it. I didn't discover it until
I ran cfdisk, which showed it plain as day. Such a small sliver
of free space, guess I might have noticed if I had really
studied those numbers carefully.
But it was enough to mess up the swap file, and some other stuff,
because Linux couldn't tell if it should be assigned as /dev/hda9
or /dev/hda8.
I removed the tiny partition and re-installed Linux, and things
are working much better now. Thanks for the help!
Lesson: look at a stubborn problem in a number of different ways,
using a number of different tools. The solution may jump out
at you just when you're about to pull your hair out!! ;-)
And with experience, I will know that my vague unease about the
numbering starting at /dev/hda6 instead of /dev/hda5 is
something to prompt quick investigation next time.
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best wishes,
richard myers
