Boot problem after / partition resize - ( Stupid mistake !!) [SOLVED]

[Abraxas]

Why not tell us exactly what you did, and post your /boot/grub/menu.lst so we can see what you see. If we know what you did and how you did it, we can probably tell you how to fix it without a re-installation.

Your Too Kind old-polack, I appreciate your offer of Help, thankyou.

If you can get your head around this it may be of benefit to our Forum knowledge base, not sure if this is a great place to post the exact details, though we could start an appropriately located Thread, or move this post ?

1.) I Dual Boot. WinXP, pclos MiniMe 2011.06, that wasn't a clean install either (!), it was fully updated incrementally through Synaptic.
2.) Had Illness and on some strong Meds, uhum.
3.) I use Win at work, so don't login at home to win often, felt should do some housekeeping however.
4.) To cut a long story, was having a look at a Partition Manager programme in Windows; for the life of me and I blame it on not being well, and tired, you know; I resized the root partition on pclos Minime 2011.06, as it is on the C:\ Drive, where Windows lives and crazy I know, this was not wise.
5.) The programme allerted me I may have to "adapt" the linux bootloader, but my finger had slid the resizer bar, apply, and I'd stuffed up.
6.)Once rebooted I got a error, GRUB error- 17, vaguely from memory.

I am interested in what "could" have been done, as you suggested posting some info, I'll continue,  maybe some may learn something also...
*I put my (OLD)Live CD of pclos Minime 2010.12 in tray and rebooted.
*Entered pclos as "guest", was looking for a clue, ( as I know now somehow find /boot/grub/menu.lst ? ) all a bit blurry, but eventually felt my only option was to install this version; could see Windows drives, and knew I still had most of 2011.06 on my Hard drive, but was lost.
*Installing off of the Live CD Minime 2010.12 gave me back a grub bootloader so I could boot into windows, restore the MBR (Master Boot Record -Win) which I have safely stored, and yeah the rest is history.
*Deleted the six Linux partitions,   ;  have downloaded.iso & made a Live Cd of pclos LXDE Mini 2011.06, and waiting for a bit to get my head back together, and finish antibiotics.
LESSON: If your a bit spaced out, Tired, whatever don't put yourself into a position so vulnerable as I did. I know, I'm an idiot !
It's with great embarrassment I post this information, which will give all a great laugh, I'm sure  

[Old-Polack]

francis:

I'm not laughing, and what's more, I feel your pain. Right now your only course is a new installation. I moved your post here so you'd have a more easy to find thread should you have any problems with the new installation. If so, just add to this thread. If your problems are specific to the LXDE mini, we can move the thread again, into the special section for LXDE

You can rename the thread by clicking the Modify link in your first post. Name it whatever you feel is appropriate to the situation as it now exists.

I'll be watching, and I'm sure others will be too. Always remember, you're among friends here and help is this close.

[menotu]

It's with great embarrassment I post this information, which will give all a great laugh, I'm sure   

No laughter here either francis - in fact I applaud your honesty in saying exactly what you did. More power to you my friend!!

[Abraxas]

old-polack:

Always remember, you're among friends here and help is this close. 

menotu:

No laughter here either francis - in fact I applaud your honesty in saying exactly what you did. More power to you my friend!!

Gee thanks for your support guy's  It was either hide in the dark somewhere, forever,...or come clean really   

I am thinking of Installing pclos LXDE Mini 2011.06, as I've tried a Live CD from the downloaded .iso and it seems to suit my Low End Graphics System.
I have 768MB RAM, minus the Onboard Graphics Chip shares 64 MB's of that.
On the Live CD Test run felt very perky as far as graphics, and overall performance.
I love PCLinuxOS (KDE) Mini, but maybe time to have a change. 
Using WinXP SP3 is quite odd to tell you the truth, does not feel right at all after using PCLinuxOS MiniMe for eight months, on my personal Computer with the occassional peep in to XP to update the endles security software updates, plus the third party software security updates. 
Also I notice I get a Download speed in general of 200 to 300 kb/s whereas in pclos previously I'd get a steady 1.2MB/s, anyway I've learnt a lesson, and anyone reading this will be inspired to see what support PCLinuxOS Forum has in its member's ranks. Awesome doesn't come close !   

I'm taking things a bit slowly for the moment  Scarey stuff !!

[djohnston]

It's with great embarrassment I post this information, which will give all a great laugh, I'm sure  

I'm not laughing, either, Francis. How many of us can say we've never done anything we knew we shouldn't do and ended up regretting it? I know I can't. Not with a straight face, anyway.

[Abraxas]

Well it's not my week, lol.
I installed PCLinuxOS LXDE Mini 2011.06, was offered 6 GB's, thought what are you crazy, did my best to increase the partitions to 12 GB's successfully, but the naughty thing has overwrit the beginning of my 40 GB HDD it seems, with that rather important sector, the MBR.
I must say the more I searched the Forum, and the GParted Forum, I found nothing terribly solid in the form of a definitive way of partitioning which didn't result in some kind of disaster. Never had any problem before installing PCLinuxOS, but that was the KDE version, I'm typing to you from PCLinuxOS LXDE 2011.06 Mini !


The screen stayed grey an eternity after saying to take out the CD and hit Enter, after instructing to Reboot.

So had to hold the Power button, let those electrons dissipate for a bit, then somehow "logged in", updated through Synaptic, installed a heap of stuff, but have lost Windows XP.

The Damage:

root (hd1,0)
File system type unknown,
Partition type 0x7
map (0x81) (0x80)
map (0x80) (0x81)
make active
chainloader +1

NTLDR is missing
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart.

And I did study i'd say three hours all manner of, "Well I like to Partitition my drive before installing PCLinuxOS". Maybe XP was unstable, I don't know, doubt it, it's as solid a system as I've ever come across, but partitoning in XP didn't work, I tried to just make a 15 GB Partition on the 40 GB C:\ Drive, with 25 GB's Free, just to accomadate pclinux, but something was up, I couldn't, so I just went for it. Put in the Live CD. The partitioning "Wizard in Advanced mode" must have confused me, or I confused it.
 
I have a 500 GB External HD backup of my important info so  basically I'm rolling on the floor in tears of laughter wondering when will the nightmare end, lol. Those Electrons are funny little beings aren't they ?

[Xenaflux]

It's with great embarrassment I post this information, which will give all a great laugh, I'm sure

You have no idea how many of us have been there at some time.
Just for fun, ahum, I spend about 10 minutes trying to remember how many times I glorious screwed up on partitioning in 8 years.
Well, it's more than ten times, but less than 50
 

It's the way we learn and remember best.

Xena

[Abraxas]

" ...You have no idea how many of us have been there at some time.
Just for fun, ahum, I spend about 10 minutes trying to remember how many times I glorious screwed up on partitioning in 8 years.
Well, it's more than ten times, but less than 50

Oh you're a barrel of laughs Xenaflux.   Lol !! Surely we can do something about that, it's too painful 

Really, so it's like having to be a Spartan, when your born they would leave the baby out in the bush and if it survived it was considered worthy of being a "Spartan", and living to kill another day 

OOH, I found the Grub Menu.lst  Would that help find my XP ?

Code:

timeout 10
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
gfxmenu (hd0,0)/boot/gfxmenu
default 0

title linux
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux root=UUID=a803b577-ab30-4ecf-b6a6-d7f8d4355db1  quiet vmalloc=256M acpi=on splash=silent vga=788
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/initrd.img

title windows
root (hd1,0)
map (0x81) (0x80)
map (0x80) (0x81)
makeactive
chainloader +1

title linux-nonfb
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux-nonfb root=UUID=a803b577-ab30-4ecf-b6a6-d7f8d4355db1  quiet vmalloc=256M acpi=on
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/initrd.img

title failsafe
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=failsafe root=UUID=a803b577-ab30-4ecf-b6a6-d7f8d4355db1  quiet failsafe vmalloc=256M acpi=on
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/initrd.img

I'm a Windows technician for goodness sakes, how did I get involved in this Voodoo

[Xenaflux]

Francis, have you tried to use ' Redo MBR ', if you can get to it.
If you can, this will ( should ) create new entries in your menu.lst file.

[AS]

OOH, I found the Grub Menu.lst  Would that help find my XP ?

Looking at your grub menu.lst, your XP should be installed on the 2nd disk, could be helpful if you post the output of
fdisk -l  (FDISK -L lowercase)

AS

[Abraxas]

Just to bring everyone up to speed, the dumb mistake was abscent mindedly resing root from inside WinXp, this more fatal situation was created through installing PCLinuxOS 2011.06 LXDE Mini, and trying to defer the offered installation size of 6GB, alongside WinXP, to a more respectable 12 GB, using Advanced Mode in the Draklive - DrakX, Wizard.
I obviously made a wrong call at that point, but seems it' s not too hard to do so. Also there may have been some protection over the HDD from WinXP from the first "Muckup" when accidently resized / , or root, in English. Don't know but I did try to simply make a 14 GB Partition in WinXP using a commercial Partition Manager before installing LXDE, as I did a "Dry Run" of installing said distro, and found the resizing extremely difficult during the Draklive setup phase, so had been spooked using the Live CD, > Install Linux - trial I'd done earlier that day.

I digress.

Francis, have you tried to use ' Redo MBR ', if you can get to it.
If you can, this will ( should ) create new entries in your menu.lst file.

Hi Xenaflux
The 'Redo MBR' application generates the list in the 'code box', I quit the 'menu.lst' without changing it after copying and pasting it's contents, menu.lst. 'Redo MBR' says something like, "you don't want to change?"
Sorry if that sounds awkward ?
Hi AS,

Looking at your grub menu.lst, your XP should be installed on the 2nd disk, could be helpful if you post the output of
fdisk -l  (FDISK -L lowercase)

Not sure how to locate fdisk -l   Is that a command, or a list located somewhere AS, thanks !
O.k. just ran that as a  command, and it aint one, lol.
 
EDIT: Also, adding more info,  the setup is a 40 GB HDD, which had WinXP, and 18 GB's of Free space, and I wanted as I have as previously with pclos KDE Minime for eight months, install to linux partitions created on that Free disk space, using 12 GB's of the Free 18 GB's. I use a 500 GB External Drive to collect any large downloads that would compromise the Free space, if that makes any sense.

Not sure how to locate fdisk -l

[AS]

fdisk -l is a command, and it's supposed to list your hard disks partitions, something like:

Code:

Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 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
Disk identifier: 0x20000000

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1              63      240974      120456   de  Dell Utility
/dev/sda2          241664    21213183    10485760    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3   *    21221865   103137299    40957717+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4       103137300   625137344   261000022+   f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5       103137363   145066949    20964793+  83  Linux
/dev/sda6       145067013   186996599    20964793+  83  Linux
/dev/sda7       186996663   228926249    20964793+  83  Linux
/dev/sda8       228926313   270855899    20964793+  83  Linux
/dev/sda9       270855963   312785549    20964793+  83  Linux
/dev/sda10      312785613   354715199    20964793+  83  Linux
/dev/sda11      354715263   459571454    52428096   83  Linux
/dev/sda12      459571518   625137344    82782913+  83  Linux

you can run fdisk from a root console:
PCLinuxOS Control Center -> System -> Open a console as administrator, and from there type:
fdisk -l

[Abraxas]

Thankyou, shall do  

Code:

[root@localhost francis]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 41.1 GB, 41110142976 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4998 cylinders, total 80293248 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
Disk identifier: 0x0165e8aa

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *          63    25607609    12803773+  83  Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 6488 MB, 6488294400 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 788 cylinders, total 12672450 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
Disk identifier: 0xcf85cf85

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *          63    12659219     6329578+   7  HPFS/NTFS

[Old-Polack]

francis:

In a terminal fdisk -l is indeed a command. Try it as root if it doesn't seem to work as a normal user. You should see something like this.

[Abraxas]

yep, here it is, thanks ...

Code:

[root@localhost francis]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 41.1 GB, 41110142976 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4998 cylinders, total 80293248 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
Disk identifier: 0x0165e8aa

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *          63    25607609    12803773+  83  Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 6488 MB, 6488294400 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 788 cylinders, total 12672450 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
Disk identifier: 0xcf85cf85

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *          63    12659219     6329578+   7  HPFS/NTFS

Hope that tells something ...

EDIT:Sorry, the - "Disk /dev/sdb: 6488 MB" is a small SLAVE Drive, I have installed.