cant boot pclos [resolved]

[AS]

df -T gets me:

Filesystem  type  size     used  avail  use%  mounted on
/dev/sda7   ext2  321G  3.8G  310G  2%       /

This is the partition of your installation: /dev/sda7

I need to ask you if the partitions were been created from the PCLinuxOS installation, or from another Linux flavors,
or if you have another Linux installation on the same disk .... don't know what to think about /dev/sda5, it could be
a result of a partition created but not formatted ... it's unlikely that it's a corrupted partition...

[AS]

Note to self:

Disk /dev/sda: 640.1 GB, 640135028736 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 77825 cylinders, total 1250263728 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x70004695

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1            2048    31459327    15728640   27  Unknown
/dev/sda2   *    31459328    31664127      102400    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3        31664128   533165219   250750546    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4       533165220  1250258624   358546702+   5  Extended
Partition 4 does not start on physical sector boundary.
/dev/sda5       533165283   558355139    12594928+  83  Linux
Partition 5 does not start on physical sector boundary.
/dev/sda6       558355203   566532224     4088511   82  Linux swap / Solaris
Partition 6 does not start on physical sector boundary.
/dev/sda7       566532288  1250258624   341863168+  83  Linux

I can't avoid to notice also this particular hard disk and it's layout. Look like this is one of the new hard disks using a 4Kb sector size, but at the same time is still using a 512 bytes logical sector size.

I do believe that the partition tool used here get fooled by this logical sector size, and created the partitions ignoring the actual real sector size. I believe also that this compatibility feature is a mistake from the hard disk manufacturer(s)!

[phantom16]

ok so exactly everything i have done regarding my HDD. i bought my laptop about a week ago. it came with windows 7 on a partition that took up the entire HDD. i downloaded a 3rd party program called "EASUS partition master" to shrink the partition of my windows partition so i had a nice chunk of unformatted space (that was really the only option i could seem to find). I then loaded the 2011.6 version of PCLOS i just downloaded, and installed it on the unformatted space, selecting the default option, and it created all those partitions. im not sure why, but that is everything i have done. just got it fresh, lowered the windows partition, and installed PCLOS.

and if its a compatability error, then how do i go about fixing it? or do i not? i don't get it, PCLOS was working fine for a few days, why would it stop now? i mean it still seems to load to terminal, just doesnt find a monitor

[phantom16]

Error: no display specified

looks like time to run as root XFdrake...

well that seems to have fixed the problem of my graphics not loading, and it corrected my xorg.conf file for me. just wish i would have tried that sooner lol. so the question is what did i do wrong to cause this? what should i not do again in the future?

and as, so is there some other problem with my system that you think we might be onto?

[luikki]

what did i do wrong to cause this?

i had to mess with graphics setting a little

can be a perfect answer...

[kjpetrie]

Post the contents of /etc/fstab here. We still need to know what that dead partition is meant to be and whether it's going to cause problems in the future.

[AS]

Post the contents of /etc/fstab here. We still need to know what that dead partition is meant to be and whether it's going to cause problems in the future.

+1

[phantom16]

/ect/fstab (in my main linux partition, sda7, which is what i assume you wanted)

# Entry for /dev/sda7 :
UUID=20777f8b-63cc-4b32-a2d4-562d05560af5 / ext2 defaults 1 1
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
# Entry for /dev/sda6 :
UUID=4e14fd19-04a6-4819-8877-b03eab7e1ad6 swap swap defaults 0 0
none /dev/pts devpts defaults 0 0

so yea, not seeing anything about sda5. does that mean its a dead partition? why would PCLOS create that when i install it then?

[AS]

/ect/fstab (in my main linux partition, sda7, which is what i assume you wanted)

# Entry for /dev/sda7 :
UUID=20777f8b-63cc-4b32-a2d4-562d05560af5 / ext2 defaults 1 1
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
# Entry for /dev/sda6 :
UUID=4e14fd19-04a6-4819-8877-b03eab7e1ad6 swap swap defaults 0 0
none /dev/pts devpts defaults 0 0

so yea, not seeing anything about sda5. does that mean its a dead partition? why would PCLOS create that when i install it then?

Surely it's actually not used in your installation. As I wrote before the default PCLinuxOS layout is about to create 3 partitions, the first for '/' the second as swap, the third as '/home'. What happened in your installation ... we can't know.

If you don't have valuable data in this installation, you could delete all those 3 partitions and retry a new installation. What to do is up to you., depending on how you are going to use your system  

You could also leave the system as is right now (you miss 12 Gb, not a big problem), I'm sure that after a few months you will feel the need for a different setup,  may be some separated data partition or something like... At that time you will repartition and reinstall your system as you prefer. May be even tomorrow!  

[phantom16]

that works i guess, since i managed to get things working again i think im just going to leave things and hope for the best. and i keep all my documents on my external, so if i ever do need to reinstall it wont really be a problem. and after i ran the XFdrake command the problem of my screen flickering occasionally seems to have disappeared as well that i was posting on this thread: http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,96021.15.html, so i guess that resolved itself i guess lol. thanks everyone for your help