1 Topic by Kirkx (edited by Kirkx 2008-02-25 23:14:51)

  • Kirkx
  • New member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2008-02-24
  • Posts: 6

Topic: [SOLVED]Error #2: Failed to check mount state

I have one disk with 25 partitions. Most are NTFS, a few are FAT32 and one is Ext3 (for now empty). After GPartyd starts up and finishes the scan, the first 15 partitions look ok and the rest show the following message (partition - information):

WARNING: The device /dev/sda16 doesn't exist
ERROR (2): Failed to check /dev/sda16 mount state
No such file or directory
Probably /etc/mtab is missing

Dual boot system:

0-0: Windows XP SP2 (NTFS)
0-1: Empty (Ext3)
0-2: FreeDOS (FAT32)

Tnx

2 Reply by class413

  • class413
  • Moderator
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2007-05-25
  • Posts: 2,376

Re: [SOLVED]Error #2: Failed to check mount state

Is your disk SATA?  I know that Linux supports up to 15 partitions on SATA drives.
Perhaps you could configure your BIOS to look your drive as IDE. Not sure if this works however.

Can you see the other partitions from any other Linux live cd (Knoppix or any distro install cd) ?

*** It is highly recommended to backup any important files before doing resize/move operations. ***

3 Reply by Kirkx (edited by Kirkx 2008-02-25 23:13:40)

  • Kirkx
  • New member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2008-02-24
  • Posts: 6

Re: [SOLVED]Error #2: Failed to check mount state

1) It is SATA. The only thing I could do in BIOS is to disable SATA adapter, not sure if this would be enough to fool BIOS to see the drive as IDE and I don't really want to mess around with BIOS too much on this machine.

2) When I get a chance to create a Linux LiveCD I'll look at it again.

I really wanted to use GParted on primarily WinXP computer. As you mentioned that Linux only supports max 15 partitions on SATA drive let's just mark the thread as [SOLVED].

Tnx

4 Reply by Kirkx

  • Kirkx
  • New member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2008-02-24
  • Posts: 6

Re: [SOLVED]Error #2: Failed to check mount state

I've just got Partition Commander ($40). It has a bootable LiveCD that gets you running on some tweaked proprietary version of Linux,  VCOM Linux (VCOM is the name of the company that created the software).

Windows drive letters do disappear after partition #15 (one of those numbers is allocated to the extended partition, just like in GParted), which would confirm that this is the general rule with SATA drives under Linux. However, drive labels, which Partition Commander shows in the separate column, are recognized for all partitions, at least those up to #23 (my last partition) and all the functionality of the software is available for all partitions.

May be it's just something for your "to do later" list.

http://vcom.avanquest.com/cat/prod.php?pid=2177

5 Reply by class413

  • class413
  • Moderator
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2007-05-25
  • Posts: 2,376

Re: [SOLVED]Error #2: Failed to check mount state

Linux handles SATA drives like SCSI drives. SCSI supports up to 15 partitions on a hard disk. Of course, there are some software configurations that permit to make a big number of partitions, but I don't like this kind of configurations, as anything out of the "standards" could cause problems, soon or later.

The actual partition scheme with 4 primary partitions and more logical ones is very old. It comes from the early 80s, with the IBM-PC. At the time, hard disks were very small (10MiB or 20MiB), some systems worked even with no hard disk at all (just with 1 or 2 floppy drives 160 or 180KB each! ). So, 4 partitions were perhaps too much for such disks. This model (with the addition of the extended+logical partitions option) is still in use, rather for backward compatibility and software compatibility.

There is a new partitioning standard in elaboration, that would permit much more, according to the today's hardware and software needs. This means new BIOS too.

*** It is highly recommended to backup any important files before doing resize/move operations. ***