THANKS ! RE: minimal files essential for booting ?
Thanks to all who helped on this one!!
Indeed, it was /lib that was missing during boot. I repartitioned the
disk putting /etc, /bin and /lib back on the / partition, and everything is
hunky dorry. I am now set to enjoy the freedom acquired by moving from
a 115 MB drive to a 6.1 GB drive.
Ta,
Gerald
On Thu, Aug 06, 1998 at 01:02:55AM -0700, G. Crimp wrote:
>
> Sorry to be a pain with this, but I want to try one more time for
> help. I recently copied my file system over to a new bigger disk, but I
> can't boot to the new disk. Question and hypothesis first, explanation
> following.
>
> I went nuts partitioning the new disk. I was mostly just
> experimenting. Many will think I have gone needlessly overboard. I won't
> disagree. The old disk has two partitions, one being swap. The new disk
> has a partition for just about everything. These directories all live on
> their own partitions:
> /usr
> /usr/local
> /var
> /home
> /etc
> /bin
> /tmp
> /lib
>
>
> I'm thinking now that the boot sequence needs something from /etc,
> /bin or /lib that it can't find 'cause it hasn't been mounted yet (see
> below). That's why I am wondering if anyone can tell me what files,
> configuration, executable or otherwise are essential for booting the system.
> I'd be happy to RTFM if someone can tell me what manual I should be
> reading. I had a look at the howto index. The section on the boot sequence
> in the boot disk howto gave some insights but not enough. Can't think where
> else to look for info. Steps taken, explanation and things tried follows.
>
> Before anyone asks, the copy was not the problem. I used a tar
> mostly and cpio for the device files once I discovered that tar was not
> going to work. I copied directory by directory and for each directory under
> /, I did 'ls -lAFR > file' where file was either oldfs or newfs. I then did
> a diff on the two files. The only differences were things like number of
> used blocks, date stamps and a ton of pairs of directory names because one
> of each pair was prefixed with /mnt. There were no differences (after a few
> tries :-)) in the mode bits nor the ownership.
>
> Other steps taken:
> 1) copied kernel image to floppy using instructions for compiling
> kernel found in the source tree;
> 2) edited fstab and lilo.conf(even though I wasn't counting
> on booting from the hard drive right off the bat);
> 3) made the new drive master;
> 4) changed the cmos configuration (not really necessary);
>
> When let 'er rip, I only get as far as this message in the boot
> sequence:
>
> VFS: root partition (ext2 filesystem) mounted read-only.
>
> If I boot from the old drive, the next message is :
>
> INIT: something else that flashes by too quickly to be read.
>
> I tried copying the contents of /bin and /etc to root partition instead of
> having them on their own partitions, but that didn't help. Anyway, init is
> in /sbin which is on the root partition anyway. Should I have /lib on the
> root partition too ?
>
> Thanks for any more help.
>
> Perplexed,
>
> Gerald
>
>
>
> --
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