[Techtalk] Re: can't umount floppy

Berenice showercurtain2000 at yahoo.com
Thu Apr 17 22:04:22 EST 2003


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> Today's Topics:
> 
>    1. Re: Apache: Seems simple???: The Answer (Becky Norum)
>    2. Can't umount floppy (Berenice)
>    3. Re: Can't umount floppy (Rasjid Wilcox)
>    4. Re: I lost my filesystem (Conor Daly)
>    5. Re: Re: I lost my filessystem (Conor Daly)
>    6. Re: Re: I lost my filessystem (Carla Schroder)
>    7. Re: Can't umount floppy (Conor Daly)
>    8. Re: Re: I lost my filessystem (Conor Daly)
> 
> 
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Date: 15 Apr 2003 08:31:43 +0000
> From: Becky Norum <bnorum at coe.neu.edu>
> To: techtalk at linuxchix.org
> Subject: Re: [Techtalk] Apache: Seems simple???: The Answer
> Message-ID: <1050395502.17079.1.camel at bnorum.ece.neu.edu>
> In-Reply-To: <a05200e1ebac12f51c040@[66.152.196.38]>
> References: <a05200e0dbac0e46330a8@[66.152.196.38]>
> 	 <1050345390.15460.13.camel at bnor   um.ece.neu.edu>
> 	 <a05200e11bac0fd7d1284@[66.152.196.38]>
> 	 <33722.66.41.4.208.1050367908.squirrel at www.flyballdogs.com>
> 	 <a05200e1abac1169df62e@[66.152.196.38]>
> 	 <a05200e1ebac12f51c040@[66.152.196.38]>
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> 
> On Tue, 2003-04-15 at 03:41, Michelle Murrain wrote:
> > After a bit of deep googling, I found the answer, for those of
> you 
> > that might be interested. It's in this bug report of 2 years ago:
> > 
> > http://www.geocrawler.com/archives/3/192/2001/11/50/7177557/
> > 
> > Basically, for the directory I want to execute index.cgi, I need
> to 
> > use 'Alias' instead of 'ScriptAlias'. Sigh.
> > 
> > I hope they've fixed this in 2.0
> 
> Wow - thanks for sharing that, Michelle.  It's amazing how many
> "little"
> bugs like that exist... :P
> 
> Becky
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 05:49:32 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Berenice <showercurtain2000 at yahoo.com>
> To: Techtalk <techtalk at linuxchix.org>
> Subject: [Techtalk] Can't umount floppy
> Message-ID: <20030415124932.17088.qmail at web13208.mail.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> MIME-Version: 1.0
> Precedence: list
> Message: 2
> 
> I sometimes get the "can't unmount - device is busy" message when I
> try to umount my floppy. I didn't know what to do when this
> happened
> the other day, so I ejected the disk and discovered today I'd lost
> everything on it.  Luckily I have a copy of the files on the hard
> drive. 
> 
> I've checked that I'm not inside the /mnt/floppy directory and that
> I'm not using any files on my floppy when I do umount.  What should
> I
> do when I need to turn off the computer but can't umount?  Does RH
> automatically umount when it's shutting down?  
> 
> Thanks
> Berenice
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __________________________________________________
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> ------------------------------
> 
> Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 23:20:37 +1000
> From: Rasjid Wilcox <rasjidw at openminddev.net>
> To: Berenice <showercurtain2000 at yahoo.com>,
> 	Techtalk <techtalk at linuxchix.org>
> Subject: Re: [Techtalk] Can't umount floppy
> Message-ID: <200304152320.37863.rasjidw at openminddev.net>
> In-Reply-To: <20030415124932.17088.qmail at web13208.mail.yahoo.com>
> References: <20030415124932.17088.qmail at web13208.mail.yahoo.com>
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> 
> On Tue, 15 Apr 2003 10:49 pm, Berenice wrote:
> > I sometimes get the "can't unmount - device is busy" message when
> I
> > try to umount my floppy. I didn't know what to do when this
> happened
> > the other day, so I ejected the disk and discovered today I'd
> lost
> > everything on it.  Luckily I have a copy of the files on the hard
> > drive.
> >
> >
> > I've checked that I'm not inside the /mnt/floppy directory and
> that
> > I'm not using any files on my floppy when I do umount.
> 
> You can check this for sure with (as root)
> # lsof | grep floppy
> 
> lsof lists all open files.
> 
> You may find there is a bash shell you had forgotten about
> somewhere, or 
> perhaps there is some other RH process doing something.
> 
> >  What should I
> > do when I need to turn off the computer but can't umount?  Does
> RH
> > automatically umount when it's shutting down?
> 
> IIRC, in general, yes, and by the time it tries to unmount,
> anything that had 
> a file open on the disk will have been terminated.
> 
> The only times I've had Linux hang upon trying to unmount on
> shutdown was a) 
> when there was a serious hardware problem or b) when there was a
> nfs mounted 
> volume and the server exporting the nfs filesystem was down.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Rasjid.
> 
> -- 
> 
> Rasjid Wilcox
> Canberra, Australia.  UTC + 10.
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 11:48:29 +0100
> From: Conor Daly <conor.daly at oceanfree.net>
> To: techtalk at linuxchix.org
> Subject: Re: [Techtalk] I lost my filesystem
> Message-ID: <20030415114829.A12977 at Hobbiton.cod.ie>
> In-Reply-To: <000601c30287$c3094130$5c0a0796 at hpretorius>;
> 	from hpretorius at pnp.co.za on Mon, Apr 14, 2003 at 03:14:20PM +0200
> References: <000601c30287$c3094130$5c0a0796 at hpretorius>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
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> Message: 4
> 
> On Mon, Apr 14, 2003 at 03:14:20PM +0200 or so it is rumoured
> hereabouts, 
> Hanlie Pretorius thought:
> > 
> > * change fstab to remove references to hda but the whole system
> is in
> > read-only mode and we can't save fstab (we can see the three
> partitions
> > though)
> 
> You can remount the root partition read-write thus:
> 
> mount -o remount,rw /
> 
> Of course, you _should_ fsck it before remounting but for an
> emergency,
> you could get away with it.  I've used this to save my bacon on a
> number
> of disk moves when I've forgotten whichever vital step that I
> should have
> made before the move...
> 
> Conor
> -- 
> Conor Daly <conor.daly at oceanfree.net>
> 
> Domestic Sysadmin :-)
> ---------------------
> Faenor.cod.ie
>  11:45am  up 25 days, 17:21,  0 users,  load average: 0.00, 0.00,
> 0.00
> Hobbiton.cod.ie
>  11:44am  up 25 days, 17:20,  1 user,  load average: 0.02, 0.08,
> 0.02
> ------------------------------
> 
> Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 12:27:45 +0100
> From: Conor Daly <conor.daly at oceanfree.net>
> To: techtalk at linuxchix.org
> Subject: Re: [Techtalk] Re: I lost my filessystem
> Message-ID: <20030415122745.B12977 at Hobbiton.cod.ie>
> In-Reply-To: <000001c3031c$fa2df7b0$5c0a0796 at hpretorius>;
> 	from hpretorius at pnp.co.za on Tue, Apr 15, 2003 at 09:02:27AM +0200
> References: <000001c3031c$fa2df7b0$5c0a0796 at hpretorius>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> MIME-Version: 1.0
> Precedence: list
> Message: 5
> 
> On Tue, Apr 15, 2003 at 09:02:27AM +0200 or so it is rumoured
> hereabouts, 
> Hanlie Pretorius thought:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > You guys are great and I was very excited to try your
> suggestions.
> > Unfortunately none of them worked, and I give the details below
> (in the
> > order that I tried the solutions). I would be very grateful if
> someone could
> > try and help me again.
> > 
> > 
> > 1. Carla's suggestion: booting from GRUB's command line
> > -------------------------------------------------------
> > The first command went fine - it found the root. But it couldn't
> find any
> > vmlinuz* files. I found this strange because when I boot into
> rescue mode, I
> > can see the system loading a vmlinuz file. I got the vmlinuz
> version from
> > the GRUB commands (vmlinuz-2.4.18-14) and tried it directly
> (without using
> > tab-completion), but it still didin't work. I got "Error 15: File
> not
> > found", so I couldn't go ahead with this solution.
> 
> Try again but use the tab completion this time.  You'll see quick
> enough
> either that the file isn't there or that it has a different name. 
> When
> you boot into rescue mode, are you booting from a CD rather than
> from the
> hard disk?  If so, the vmlinuz that is loading comes off the CD.
>  
> What is /dev/hdb1?  Is it a small /boot partition?  If so, that's
> where
> your vmlinuz is.  I'm not sure how to tell grub that vmlinuz is in
> a
> partition other than the root partition.  Carla?  
> 
> root(hd1,0)?  
> kernel (hd1,0)/vmlinuz... root=/dev/hdb2?
> 
>  
> > 2. Robyn's suggestion: upgrading Linux
> > --------------------------------------
> > I got the following error when it was about to start the
> upgrade:"Error
> > mounting device hda3 as /mnt/oulinux: Invalid argument. This most
> likely
> > means that this partition has not been formatted. Press OK to
> reboot your
> > system".
> 
> I'm not sure here, but the upgrade process is probably reading your
> /etc/fstab and assuming it is to use /dev/hda3.  This seems kinda
> odd
> since it is probably reading the fstab from /dev/hdb2 so it should
> pick up
> on than instead.  You could at this point, do <CTRL><ALT><F3> (or
> is that
> <F2>?) where you should be in a shell.  Then try the following:
> 
> # cd /mnt
> # mkdir myroot
> # mount /dev/hdb2 /mnt/myroot
> # vi /mnt/myroot/etc/fstab
>    do the fstab edits here
>   (Be explicit about partition devices here
>    rather than using labels.  Ie. replace
>    "Label=/" with "/dev/hdb2")
> 
> If you can't get a shell this way, booting from a rescue CD will
> get you
> to the point where you can do the above.
> 
> Conor (who could do it with LILO...) <ducks>
> -- 
> Conor Daly <conor.daly at oceanfree.net>
> 
> Domestic Sysadmin :-)
> ---------------------
> Faenor.cod.ie
>  11:58am  up 25 days, 17:34,  0 users,  load average: 0.00, 0.00,
> 0.00
> Hobbiton.cod.ie
>  11:57am  up 25 days, 17:32,  1 user,  load average: 0.00, 0.01,
> 0.00
> ------------------------------
> 
> Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 09:22:42 -0700
> From: Carla Schroder <carla at bratgrrl.com>
> To: techtalk at linuxchix.org
> Subject: Re: [Techtalk] Re: I lost my filessystem
> Message-ID: <200304150922.43008.carla at bratgrrl.com>
> In-Reply-To: <20030415122745.B12977 at Hobbiton.cod.ie>
> References: <000001c3031c$fa2df7b0$5c0a0796 at hpretorius>
> 	<20030415122745.B12977 at Hobbiton.cod.ie>
> Content-Type: text/plain;
>   charset="iso-8859-1"
> MIME-Version: 1.0
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> Precedence: list
> Reply-To: carla at bratgrrl.com
> Message: 6
> 
> On Tuesday 15 April 2003 4:27 am, Conor Daly wrote:
> > > The first command went fine - it found the root. But it
> couldn't find any
> > > vmlinuz* files. I found this strange because when I boot into
> rescue
> > > mode, I can see the system loading a vmlinuz file. I got the
> vmlinuz
> > > version from the GRUB commands (vmlinuz-2.4.18-14) and tried it
> directly
> > > (without using tab-completion), but it still didin't work. I
> got "Error
> > > 15: File not found", so I couldn't go ahead with this solution.
> >
> > Try again but use the tab completion this time.  You'll see quick
> enough
> > either that the file isn't there or that it has a different name.
>  When
> > you boot into rescue mode, are you booting from a CD rather than
> from the
> > hard disk?  If so, the vmlinuz that is loading comes off the CD.
> >  
> > What is /dev/hdb1?  Is it a small /boot partition?  If so, that's
> where
> > your vmlinuz is.  I'm not sure how to tell grub that vmlinuz is
> in a
> > partition other than the root partition.  Carla?  
> >
> > root(hd1,0)?  
> > kernel (hd1,0)/vmlinuz... root=/dev/hdb2?
> 
> A rescue disk boots its own vmlinuz, that is unrelated to finding
> the one on 
> your hard drive. If it's not finding vmlinuz on the hard drive,
> then it's 
> missing or damaged. Tab completion will find all kernels, no matter
> how many 
> partitions and kernels there are. The only other thing I can think
> is 
> double-check the root values, remember if
> 
> root(hd1,1)
> 
> then on this line it uses fdisk numbering:
> 
> kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.19 root=/dev/hdb2
> 
> Gaah, this is frustrating, I never did like remote diagnosis!
> 
> -- 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Carla Schroder
> www.tuxcomputing.com
> this message brought to you
> by Libranet 2.7 and Kmail
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2003 00:04:28 +0100
> From: Conor Daly <conor.daly at oceanfree.net>
> To: Techtalk <techtalk at linuxchix.org>
> Subject: Re: [Techtalk] Can't umount floppy
> Message-ID: <20030416000428.B18642 at Hobbiton.cod.ie>
> In-Reply-To: <20030415124932.17088.qmail at web13208.mail.yahoo.com>;
> 	-0700
> References: <20030415124932.17088.qmail at web13208.mail.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> MIME-Version: 1.0
> Precedence: list
> Message: 7
> 
> On Tue, Apr 15, 2003 at 05:49:32AM -0700 or so it is rumoured
> hereabouts, 
> Berenice thought:
> > I sometimes get the "can't unmount - device is busy" message when
> I
> > try to umount my floppy. I didn't know what to do when this
> happened
> > the other day, so I ejected the disk and discovered today I'd
> lost
> > everything on it.  Luckily I have a copy of the files on the hard
> > drive. 
> 
> Typically, disk writes are buffered and only written to disk from
> time to
> time.  When you umount a disk, any outstanding buffers are flushed
> to disk
> before the disk is unmounted.  You'll see this with floppies if you
> mount,
> cp to floppy, umount.  It will take some time (the floppy busily
> clunks
> away) for the prompt to return after the umount because it's
> fushing the
> buffer to disk.  When you ejected the floppy without umounting
> first, the
> data hadn't been physically written to the disk.
> 
> Conor
> -- 
> Conor Daly <conor.daly at oceanfree.net>
> 
> Domestic Sysadmin :-)
> ---------------------
> Faenor.cod.ie
>  12:00am  up 26 days,  5:36,  0 users,  load average: 0.00, 0.00,
> 0.00
> Hobbiton.cod.ie
>  12:00am  up 26 days,  5:35,  1 user,  load average: 0.34, 0.13,
> 0.04
> ------------------------------
> 
> Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 23:58:55 +0100
> From: Conor Daly <conor.daly at oceanfree.net>
> To: techtalk at linuxchix.org
> Subject: Re: [Techtalk] Re: I lost my filessystem
> Message-ID: <20030415235855.A18642 at Hobbiton.cod.ie>
> In-Reply-To: <200304150922.43008.carla at bratgrrl.com>;
> 	from carla at bratgrrl.com on Tue, Apr 15, 2003 at 09:22:42AM -0700
> References: <000001c3031c$fa2df7b0$5c0a0796 at hpretorius>
> 	<20030415122745.B12977 at Hobbiton.cod.ie>
> 	<200304150922.43008.carla at bratgrrl.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> MIME-Version: 1.0
> Precedence: list
> Message: 8
> 
> On Tue, Apr 15, 2003 at 09:22:42AM -0700 or so it is rumoured
> hereabouts, 
> Carla Schroder thought:
> > On Tuesday 15 April 2003 4:27 am, Conor Daly wrote:
> > > Hanlie said:
> > > > The first command went fine - it found the root. But it
> couldn't find any
> > > > vmlinuz* files. I found this strange because when I boot into
> rescue
> > > > mode, I can see the system loading a vmlinuz file. I got the
> vmlinuz
> > > > version from the GRUB commands (vmlinuz-2.4.18-14) and tried
> it directly
> > > > (without using tab-completion), but it still didin't work. I
> got "Error
> > > > 15: File not found", so I couldn't go ahead with this
> solution.
> > >
> > > What is /dev/hdb1?  Is it a small /boot partition?  If so,
> that's where
> > > your vmlinuz is.  I'm not sure how to tell grub that vmlinuz is
> in a
> > > partition other than the root partition.  Carla?  
> > >
> > > root(hd1,0)?  
> > > kernel (hd1,0)/vmlinuz... root=/dev/hdb2?
> > 
> > If it's not finding vmlinuz on the hard drive, then it's 
> > missing or damaged.
> 
> Or if /boot is mounted from a seperate partition.
> 
> > Tab completion will find all kernels, no matter how many 
> > partitions and kernels there are.
> 
> As I understand it, GRUB (which I don't know well enough to be
> sure) tab
> completion will see only those kernels that are in the partition it
> has
> just mounted via the root() command.  If the kernels are in a
> seperate
> partition (eg /dev/hdb1 = (hd1,0)) and you use root(hd1,1), GRUB
> won't see
> the kernel.
> 
> > The only other thing I can think is 
> > double-check the root values, remember if
> > 
> > root(hd1,1)
> > 
> > then on this line it uses fdisk numbering:
> > 
> > kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.19 root=/dev/hdb2
> 
> >From my understanding of the process, the above is valid only if
> the
> kernel in /boot is in the same physical filesystem as the root
> device.  If
> it's in a seperate partition, then _that_ partition needs to be
> accessed
> by GRUB.
> 
> Let me just review the seperate partitions thing:
> 
> o RedHat (and other) installers will usually suggest a small /boot
>   partition (eg. /dev/hdb1) as well as the main / partition (eg.
> /dev/hdb2)
> o This partition gets mounted under /boot
> o The "boot" directory exists _only_ in the filesystem on /dev/hdb2
> o A file "/boot/foo" exists _only_ in the filesystem on /dev/hdb1
> o This file exists as /dev/hdb1/foo, _not_ as /dev/hdb1/boot/foo.
> 
> GRUB does not know about the mount order of filesystems so it won't
> know
> to mount /dev/hdb1 under /boot to go looking for /boot/vmlinuz...
> Instead, it needs to mount the filesystem _containing_ the kernel
> and then
> tell that _kernel_ where the system's root is.
> 
> In this configuration, the GRUB commands should be:
> 
> root(hd1,0)
> # to access and mount the /boot partition containing the kernels
> 
> kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.19 ro root=/dev/hdb2
> # vmlinuz... is in the _root_ of the /boot partition so you leave
> out the
> # /boot bit.
>  
> Hanlie, can you post your /etc/fstab and the output of 'fdisk -l'
> so we
> can see what your partitions look like.  
> 
> > Gaah, this is frustrating, I never did like remote diagnosis!
> 
> :-)
> 
> Conor
> -- 
> Conor Daly <conor.daly at oceanfree.net>
> 
> Domestic Sysadmin :-)
> ---------------------
> Faenor.cod.ie
>  11:31pm  up 26 days,  5:07,  0 users,  load average: 0.00, 0.00,
> 0.00
> Hobbiton.cod.ie
>  11:30pm  up 26 days,  5:06,  1 user,  load average: 0.24, 0.08,
> 0.02
> ------------------------------
> 
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> 
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