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Interrupted emerge, passwd instruction executed late, dev/sda2 already exists, found lost partition
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interestedaboutfuntoo,
Asked by
interestedaboutfuntoo,
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interestedaboutfuntoo
Attempted my two first Funtoo (or Gentoo-based) installs using the BIOS+GRUB(MBR) option (unsecured boot, legacy support) as System Rescue would not boot with secure boot, and having used Ubuntu-based distros off and on for an aggregate total of c. 2 yrs, migrating as disappointed to learn about pitfalls of systemd. Laptop is HP AMD64 with an A10 (?'pile driver' I suspect) 4-core. Neither of the two Funtoo install attempts got to a command prompt stage, and I suspect that this was due to my errors. The bootup processes for both install attempts stopped with a message like 'INIT: no more instructions at this run level'. I did try to begin posting most of these queries on your IRC channel, and I did get some reassurance there, thank you, but I am not adept at handling IRC so I would be grateful for your guidance here.
My errors were as follows:-
(a) on first install, interrupted emerge/compile during second last instruction on the Funtoo installation instructions page re emerging NetworkManager, as the laptop eventually powered off having disconnnected AC power for fear of heating up;
(b) on first install, I only attempted to issue the last instruction about executing the passwd root command after powering up from a System Rescue CD on next day, having tried to issue the emerge NetworkManager command again to pick up where this installation had been interrupted on the previous day (see error messages at bootup further down in this post);
© the first snag on attempting a reinstall (the 2nd install attempt), the fdisk reported that the HDD was only c. 698Gb so it had somehow shrunk from c.800Gb; testdisk command within System Rescue CD reported something like 750Gb/698Gb, and further examination by testdisk revealed lost partitions, including a lost 'linux' and a 'FreeBSD' partition even though I had never installed FreeBSD! The laptop has only ever had Windows 8 (from factory)/8.1, Ubuntu-based distros and some attempted OpenBSD installations, so I have wondered whether someone has tried (successfully?) to install FreeBSD while I used several wifi public connections without a VPN, and usually with a firewall or iptables. Someone on IRC channel kindly suggested that the FreeBSD partttion may have been a remnant of a previous (OpenBSD/Un*x?) install.
(d) While attempt to redo the install (the second install attempt) by running fdisk or one of the other first instructions to install Funtoo, I was also surprised to get the message that there was already a dev/sda2 partition (I had just done the 'o' command to wipe out the former partition table created during the first funtoo install attempt and created the boot partition immediately after), but it declared that somehow there was already a dev/sda2 (formatted?) partition, so would I want to proceed anyway? Anyway, I said yes.
(e) on second install attempt, also lost power and interrupted emerge, but earlier on during that install, and had to leave the public wifi connection during the emerge NetworkManager instruction about half way through that emerge instruction (this prompted messages of a forced install without dependencies therefore for about half the 46 'packages' in the NetworkManager emerge process);
(f) having already described the shortcomings committed in (a)-(e), here is another important mistake perhaps: a recent version of the instruction page (http://www.funtoo.org/Funtoo_Linux_Installation) may have inadvertently repeated an instruction at the 'Installing a Bootloader' stage for MBR-GRUB installations (to do a '(chroot) # boot-update' instruction twice), and I executed that instruction twice nonetheless (obviously this would have been an error on my part) during both install attempts, although I think the webpage may have been updated since then and Funtoo's instructions are very helpful and look forward alot to use Funtoo.
I think that the error messages during bootup for the first install attempt were quite possily the same or very similar to the following, which I also saw during some of the early bootup instances following the second install attempt:
"Creating user login records
[...] etc/initd/bootmisc line 92: /var/log/wtmp read only file system
Error INIT: bootmisc failed to start, read only filesystem"
I did not know how to get a shell prompt, so to try to power down the system, I thought to do Ctr+alt+delete after bootup following the second install attempt, and this began a power-down procedure which included the following message:
"WARNING: [.......?] /lib64/rc is not writable. "
My main queries: what would you suggest should be done to recover the c.50Gb area of the HDD in view of a mysterious 'FreeBSD' partition area, and how to do things differently besides ensuring a continuous AC supply and internet connection? I don't know if I have locked myself out of the partitions having perhaps chrooted myself of the system (I am not quite adept at Linux yet, so this concern might be completely way off), or seeing how I was not able to issue a passwd instruction during the first install attempt until powering up a second time, and also seeing how fdisk insisted that there had still been an sda2 partition even though I had instructed fdisk to clear the partition table on my second install attempt. I could try looking into testdisk recovery facility further. I would appreciate your thoughts very much. Thank you!
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