This is not a critical problem; I will probably install FC6 from scratch
instead. But since I started the procedure, curiosity got me, and I just
have to try and ask for a way to do this. If this long posting is
ignored, it's OK. :-)
I have two 250G disks, sda and sdb. On sda there is winXP on a 5G
primary partition, which have been filled to the limit and beyond, which
is why I want to enlarge it. Then there is a primary /boot partition,
1/4G in size. An extended partition has the rest of the disk. It first
has a winXP partition that I use for apps, then the rest is allocated by
LVM for Linux, with one part used for / . The sdb disk has some
unallocated LVM space.
I wanted to try to move the Linux LVM partitions to the other drive
temporarely, creating new partitions there of the same size and copying
the contents over. The plan was to
- remove the LVM partition,
- remove it's host extended partition,
- then use a similar procedure to move boot,
- before recreating a new extended partition, leaving
enough space for the new winXP partition.
- Then I would reverse the procedure involving the
Linux root partition.
The problem came when I tried to reboot using the copy of the root
partition. Not finding /proc and (I think) /dev, and finally /dev/root,
the kernel panicked.
I changed the menu entry in grub.conf from:
title Fedora Core (2.6.20-1.2944.fc6)
root (hd0,2)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.20-1.2944.fc6 ro root=/dev/VGsda/LVroot rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.20-1.2944.fc6.img
to:
title Fedora Core temproot (2.6.20-1.2944.fc6)
root (hd0,2)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.20-1.2944.fc6 ro root=/dev/VGsdb/temproot rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.20-1.2944.fc6.img
(root (hd0,2) points to the /boot partition)
The problems I see are:
1)
I didn't change the kernel or the (memory?) image file, and I suspect
that might be one reason. Are there hardcoded references to partitions
in these files, so that the reference in grub.conf is used only to find
the kernel, and not tell the kernel where to find and mount the other
partitions? Has the kernel an 'image' of the disk system on which it is
compiled?
2)
The /dev/root special file (as all other special files in /dev were not
copied over. I tried, but gave up. The command I used was
cp -P --copy-contents /dev/root .
but after some minutes, the copy had grown to several GB, so I aborted
and deleted the file. The copying probably got caught in some circular
recursiveness.
I know the special files are neccesary, but are they generated on the
fly by the kernel, or do I have to do it manually? And would the lack of
them in it self cause the kernel panic?
3)
I have to add more entries to the grub.conf entry.
4)
Something I haven't thought of at all.
I'll probably just reinstall FC6 from scratch, but if someone comes up
with an idea on how to proceed, I'll try it out first. I just consider
this as a learning opportunity.
Thanks in advance,
Frode
