On Monday, 14 September 2020 09:38:10 BST antlists wrote:
> On 14/09/2020 08:48, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > Just before this started, I booted Win-10 on /dev/sdb and ran its update
> > process. I don't use it for anything at the moment, just keeping it up to
> > date in case I ever do. I do this most weeks, but is it possible that
> > Win-10 tampered in some way that it hasn't before? I'm seeing these
> > errors on/dev/ sda (which does have an NTFS partition) and /dev/nvme0n1
> > (which does not), but not on /dev/sdb.
>
> I know Windows has hidden partitions and things, but it shouldn't be
> tampering with the partition table. What sector does sda1 start on? It
> should be something like 2048. I don't play with that enough to really
> know what's going on, but if that number is single digits then that
> could be the problem ...
Well, I bit the bullet and started again with a new GPT partition table. I
made the partitions the same sizes as before, but this time when I ran
mkfs.ext4 on them, I wasn't told that a file system already existed with the
same name. Something had evidently been changed.
Then followed three days of trying to get the system to boot. Even though the
root and /boot partitions were exactly as before and I gave the same commands
to efibootmgr and bootctl, either the BIOS couldn't find a kernel, or it did
but
then the kernel couldn't find a file system.
In the end I pointed efibootmgr at the systemd directory and it then started.
That was definitely a new arrangement.
The Gentoo wiki could do with some expert revision; it doesn't explain any of
the structure, so when its commands don't return the expected result, I'm left
with guesswork. For example, I've only recently realised that bootctl is
needed if you want a boot menu of kernels (not counting grub-2, which I would
only install under duress).
At the end of all this, I'm left wondering what happened to the original
system. (Cosmic-ray strike?) I'm not convinced that Win-10 would go round
seeding something into all those partitions that could exist but don't, on the
disks it wasn't installed on. And why did mkfs not recognise the old file
systems?
I don't like mysteries.
--
Regards,
Peter.
