Update Fails: No Root Partition Found

Support knowledgebase (fhassel_no_root_partition)
Applies to

SuSE Linux: Versions since 8.0

Symptom

The attempt to update fails with the following error message:
No Linux root partition found.
Subsequent attempts in expert mode to reload the partition table or to load the mount points from the existing file /etc/fstab fail with error messages.

Attention: These error messages and their causes should not be mistaken for those described in the article "Update Fails: Partitions Cannot Be Mounted" (http://sdb.suse.de/en/sdb/html/fhassel_update_not_possible.html).

Cause

The cause is a faulty partition table, usually as a result of using certain partitioning tools. Thus, the partitioning program used by YaST, parted, cannot read the partition tables. This can be verified by executing the following command in the rescue system:
parted /dev/hda p
(replacing /dev/hda with the device name of your Linux hard disk). If parted is not able to read the partition table, a more informative error message will be displayed:
Warning: Unable to align partition table properly.  This probably means
that another partitioning tool generated an incorrect partition table, 
because it did not have the correct BIOS geometry. 

Solution

There are two possibilities:
  1. Create a backup of the most important data and reinstall the system. Avoid using any partitioning programs other than Linux fdisk and parted (or YaST2).
  2. The second (and more complex) approach consists of making a backup of all important data (all partitions on the affected hard disk) and using Linux fdisk to recreate the partition table. If this works, you have good chances of

    Proceed as follows:


See also:
o Update Fails: Partitions Cannot Be Mounted

Keywords: UPDATE, ROOT, PARTITION, TABLE

Categories: Installation

SDB-fhassel_no_root_partition, Copyright SuSE Linux AG, Nürnberg, Germany - Version: 07. Apr 2003
SuSE Linux AG - Last generated: 25. Jun 2003 by ip (sdb_gen 1.40.0)