Though I can boot from my hard disk (HD), I can't 
successfully mount a partition to /usr and swapon to 
a different partition.  When I boot from diskette, these
same partitions work swimmingly for /usr and swapping.

Note that I am trying to use extended partitions of
a SCSI drive for both /usr and swap.

I'm using an Adaptec 1542B, the root partition is on
/dev/sda2 (maj=8,min=2), I'm mounting /dev/sda9 (maj=8,min=9)
on /usr, and using /dev/sda8 (maj=8,min=8) for swap.
I'm working from Linux 0.97 boot and root images.

Here's what I get when I try to boot from the HD:

scsi0 : 1542.
Adaptec 1542scsi : 1 hosts.
sd0 at scsi0, id 0, lun 0 :
scsi : detected 1 scsi disk 0 tapes total.
sd0
   part 1 start 133120 size 880640 end 1013759
Unable to read partition table of device 0801
   part 2 start 67584 size 65536 end 133119
   part 3 start 2048 size 65536 end 67583
   part 4 start 32 size 2016 end 2047
Partition table ok.
331 buffers = 338944 bytes buffer space
Free mem: 7147520 bytes
bread failed
/dev/sda9 already mounted or /usr busy
scsidisk I/O error
dev 0808, sector 0
Unable to find swap-space signature
swapon: /dev/sda8: file or device not configured

Now, when I boot the same bootimage from diskette, here's
what I get (notice, no errors):

scsi0 : 1542.
Adaptec 1542scsi : 1 hosts.
sd0 at scsi0, id 0, lun 0 :
scsi : detected 1 scsi disk 0 tapes total.
sd0
   part 1 start 133120 size 880640 end 1013759
     Logical part 5 start 133152 size 65504 end 198655
     Logical part 6 start 198688 size 339936 end 538623
     Logical part 7 start 538656 size 65504 end 604159
     Logical part 8 start 604192 size 32767 end 636927
     Logical part 9 start 636960 size 376800 end 1013759
   part 2 start 67584 size 65536 end 133119
   part 3 start 2048 size 65536 end 67583
   part 4 start 32 size 2016 end 2047
Partition table ok.
339 buffers = 347136 bytes buffer space      <-- I don't know why this changes
Free mem: 7147520 bytes
/dev/sda9 on /usr/type minix (defaults)
Adding Swap: 4091 pages (16756736 bytes) swap-space
swapon: adding /dev/sda8 as swap device


Addtional information:  I'm using OS/2's bootmanager and shoelace (I
     only did the first step and that seems to have worked OK, in that
     I CAN boot from the HD).  I originally partitioned the disk with
     OS/2's fdisk, then used Linux's fdisk to change partition types
     to 81 and 82 before running mkfs and mkswap.  The first logical
     partition of the extended partition is a 32M FAT partition from
     which I'm booting OS/2.  The second is a 166M FAT partition for
     DOS and OS/2.  The third is a 32M HPFS partition.  The fourth
     and fifth are for Linux swap and Linux /usr.

Summary:  I can't understand why the boot image on a diskette
    can make sense of the partition table of device 0801 (/dev/sda1,
    an extended partition), but the same boot image on the HD cannot.

All suggestions are welcomed, including flames regarding a specific
section of an FAQ. :-)

=============================================================================
 Hal N. Brooks     Voice: (706) 546-7792     Internet: hal@pollux.cs.uga.edu
=============================================================================