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Grub problems

Ask for help with issues regarding the Installations of the Debian O/S.
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ansgar
Posts: 3
Joined: 2017-04-29 04:46

Grub problems

#1 Post by ansgar »

Hey, i have my partition like this:

Code: Select all

#fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 465.8 GiB, 500107853824 bytes, 976773152 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0xb92f268d

Device     Boot     Start       End   Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sda1  *         2048  97851391  97849344  46.7G 83 Linux
/dev/sda2       961148928 976771071  15622144   7.5G 83 Linux
/dev/sda4        98830334 961148927 862318594 411.2G  5 Extended
/dev/sda5       570527744 961148927 390621184 186.3G 83 Linux
/dev/sda6        98830336 201230335 102400000  48.8G 83 Linux
/dev/sda7       201232384 304285695 103053312  49.1G 83 Linux
/dev/sda8       304287744 362878975  58591232    28G 83 Linux
/dev/sda9       362881024 370741247   7860224   3.8G 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda10      370743296 570515455 199772160  95.3G 83 Linux
And I need to install debian as my second\backup OS, but I can do it only on sda6 or sda8.
The problem is, when Im trying to do that it completely ruins my boot, nothing starts, grub doesnt detect any proper partition to boot on.
Im sure I had working systems on extended partitions before, like fully luks encrypted ones on a same disk, so why now this isnt possible? What am I doing wrong?

Regards.

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phenest
Posts: 1702
Joined: 2010-03-09 09:38
Location: The Matrix

Re: Grub problems

#2 Post by phenest »

First of all, that is a LOT of partitions. Is that BEFORE you installed Debian? What OS have you got on there? Aside from SWAP, I'm unable to identify those partitions. Could you tell us what they are for.
ASRock H77 Pro4-M i7 3770K - 32GB RAM - Pioneer BDR-209D

ansgar
Posts: 3
Joined: 2017-04-29 04:46

Re: Grub problems

#3 Post by ansgar »

sda1 my primary OS. Arch.
sda2, swap.
sda4, extended containing all below:
sda5, my /home.
sda6 ,my backup Arch partition with boot included, the result of rsync command. If I broke my sda1 then I just copy everything from here and it works again, seems faster then reinstalling in most cases.
sda7, luksencrypted partition 1
sda8, disposable, left for operations like installing debian stable if such a crazy thing is needed.
sda9, swap created by some secondary OS (Idk why it didnt wanted to use my primary swap)
sda10, luksencrypted partition 2

So, you say it is too much partitions? Weird, never had a problems like that.

User avatar
phenest
Posts: 1702
Joined: 2010-03-09 09:38
Location: The Matrix

Re: Grub problems

#4 Post by phenest »

ansgar wrote:Hey, i have my partition like this:

Code: Select all

/dev/sda2       961148928 976771071  15622144   7.5G 83 Linux
ansgar wrote:sda2, swap.
...
sda9, swap created by some secondary OS (Idk why it didnt wanted to use my primary swap)
sda2 isn't marked as a swap partition, which is probably why that happened.
ansgar wrote:So, you say it is too much partitions? Weird, never had a problems like that.
I never said it was too many. I just said it was a lot and I needed to know what they were for.

Getting back to Debian, how does it completely ruin your boot? Was the MBR installed by Debian or are you still using the MBR that Arch installed?
ASRock H77 Pro4-M i7 3770K - 32GB RAM - Pioneer BDR-209D

ansgar
Posts: 3
Joined: 2017-04-29 04:46

Re: Grub problems

#5 Post by ansgar »

Hm.Im sure that arch uses my swap on /dev/sda2.

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#swapon
NAME      TYPE      SIZE   USED PRIO
/dev/sda2 partition 7.5G 834.2M   -1
Maybe I will format it to swap later.

So, if I install the mbr when installing debian it just wont boot afterwards.
I'm totally numb to grub, I dont even want to learn it, I find it confusing, inhumane and disgusting.Sometimes it crashes because i.e one letter is wrong and it wont even tell you that is wrong and wont fix itself even on simplest issue.
I sincerely hate it. This thing should be written in some human readable language or just have some useful commands when it crashes.

Ok, flame off.I think it can be somehow related to the fact that my hdd is external, connected via usb.My best guess would be that some 'variable' name like i.e /dev/sda1 or /dev/mapper/drive-id is changing on the boot, like maybe just external hd drivers are loading too long and got left behind.

I will just try not-installing mbr and detect debian via reinstalling grub with os-prober, but it didnt worked for me few times already with OS installed on a logical partition so I dont have a good feelings about that.

User avatar
phenest
Posts: 1702
Joined: 2010-03-09 09:38
Location: The Matrix

Re: Grub problems

#6 Post by phenest »

ansgar wrote:I'm totally numb to grub, I dont even want to learn it,
That's not a good attitude here. We don't mind giving answers, but it would be nice if you could learn something along the way.
ansgar wrote:the fact that my hdd is external, connected via usb.
If Grub is installed on that drive, it doesn't matter.
ansgar wrote:My best guess would be that some 'variable' name like i.e /dev/sda1 or /dev/mapper/drive-id is changing on the boot,
That's only relevant when you're installing Grub.

If your external drive is /dev/sda, then that is where you would install Grub to the MBR, i.e:

Code: Select all

grub-install /dev/sda
Couldn't be easier.
ASRock H77 Pro4-M i7 3770K - 32GB RAM - Pioneer BDR-209D

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