On Thursday, 17 September 2020 09:34:04 -00 Peter Humphrey wrote: > 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.
Mystery solved. It was a disk failure: a 256GB NVMe drive. It was 4.5 years old, which doesn't seem a long life to me. -- Regards, Peter.
