Lost Mount Point - Partitions Semi-Disappeared [Solved]

[Old-Polack]

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[pete@localhost ~]$ cat /etc/fstab
# Entry for /dev/sda5 :
UUID=d9055e38-8201-48e8-b794-1acdbe85e60f / ext4 defaults 1 1
# Entry for /dev/sda8 :
LABEL=Gnome1011Root /boot ext4 relatime 1 2                  <-- What were you thinking when you did this?
none /dev/pts devpts defaults 0 0
tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
# Entry for /dev/sda7 :
UUID=31abdc8e-b3da-41b7-a8a9-b68eedc07fe2 /home ext4 defaults 1 2
# Entry for /dev/sda9 :
LABEL=Gnome1011Home /nome ext4 relatime 1 2
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
# Entry for /dev/sda6 :
UUID=bb52c20b-bdec-4fa4-aa66-1471c22f7720 swap swap defaults 0 0


Why have you chosen to mount another installation's / partition on your /boot directory of the running system? This makes no sense at all.

I believe when I did the second PCLOS install on this disk, that the mount points were named by the utility.  It's been a couple years and I remember having doubts at the time.  I don't try to get creative on my own where it involves rules I'm only trying to learn.  It has worked perfectly well for all this time.  Maybe something was setup to eventually fail?  I appreciate the helps and i'll be gone till later today and hope to find out how these partitions are hidden. 

The installation application doesn't make choices, you do. The application can offer suggestions as to mount points, which it is your responsibility to either accept, reject, or change to a proper mount point of your choosing. There is no valid reason to have the system partitions of another installation auto mounted each time you boot up any given system. This is an open invitation for the running system to cause damage to the non running system. If one does mount another installation's partition, it certainly should not be on a system directory (/boot) of the running system. That act blocks the running system from access to the proper contents of that directory, and any attempted writes to the directory can cause damage to the other system.

If you have a valid reason to address some file or directory on the non running system, you can mount the required partition's filesystem on a sub directory in /mnt or /media, get the information needed, then unmount the partition immediately thereafter, to reduce the risk or accidental damage.

[kjpetrie]

I'm surprised your 2010 install runs at all since, once it mounts the newer system, its kernel becomes inaccessible. Heavy memory use would presumably crash it if part of the kernel got overwritten and then couldn't be reloaded.

I also don't understand how an older install got part of a newer install into its fstab. You must have added it at some point.

That said, I wouldn't trust either install to be stable now. You have mixed them together in an unpredictable way and sorting them out will be more trouble than it's worth. I suggest re-installing, and only mounting the / and /home in the install concerned, and perhaps the vfat if that's intended as a shared data partition. You should be able to avoid reformatting the /home partitions, as long as you choose the right one for each new install.

I'm not entirely sure why you have swap partitions on three different discs, one of which isn't even present according to blkid. Possibly this is an attempt to have swap on the 'other' disc to speed things up. If so, you probably need to edit each fstab to remove the swap on the same disc. Systems can cope with multiple swap partitions, if they're present, but at best a missing swap will cause confusion and delay at boot.

[azziam]

Long day yesterday.  Then an evening with some frustration trying to burn a new .iso disk and getting coasters out of the last couple I had.  Got more disks and today after Brasero made another coaster I turned to XP and Nero and made a good disk.  I'd rather not go there but there is a reason it's part of my system.  So, with a new 2012.3 disk booted up, everything looks good as I'd hoped it might.  Sure, it may be twisted but I can see it and that takes care of my worries.  Now I can do a new install and the only thing I'm losing is a headache.  As to the questions, "what was I thinking?" and "why is this new stuff in my older fstab?"...  I finally remembered how I had set things up back then.  I didn't use GParted, I used Drakedisk in the Control Center and it does a coupe things I probably misinterpreted.  When I made new partitions for my new root and home for the newer install, I did an 11GB space for root first.  In selecting a mount point, the utility said I couldn't have another "/" and needed to decide on another mount point.  The dropdown list had /boot as one of the choices which I guess are just sample choices.  Maybe /mnt/sda8 would have been better.  Since this partition had lost its designated mount point somehow, I used that utility to try adding one back.  When I tried /mnt/sda8 it said I'd need to format or it wouldn't be written to fstab.  (Which fstab?  Don't ask me.)  So I tried /boot again just to see if it would get me back to like a few days ago so I could move stuff around and get ready to reinstall.  That didn't change anything.  So, what was I thinking when I selected /boot in the first place?  I was thinking it was talking about /boot in the new install, not in the old one.  Nor did I put the extra swaps in the fstab.  I wouldn't and I didn't.  All is well now and I don't mind constructive criticism.  Constructive is good.  I'm constructing a new system with a 500GB and 1TB drive and it should be good for a few years.  I'll be reading more before I put more than one Linux in a row.  So, problem solved since the livedisk reveals the missing parts and I just have a little work to do.