Problem removing empty residual sdb1 folder?

[ortermagic]

I had a little tinker with my desktop yesterday, I have 2x500g hd's, one (sdb1) had mint on it which i didn't need, (the other sda1 has Ubuntu 14.04, my preferred o/s), so i decided to reformat /sdb1.
I formatted it out of existence using gparted, combined with another run using disk utility. Anyhow after finally deleted the partitions, I find that when I start up I get a grub boot-up process which hangs whilst it looks for the now defunkt /mnt/sdb1.

Then I get the dialogue "The disk drive for /mnt/sdb1 is not ready or not present" followed by "continue to wait or press 's' to skip mounting, or 'm' for manual recovery" I have to opt for the 's' option because I am clueless re the 'm' option. After pressing 's' the screen goes black for half a minute or more, then the screen suddenly pings to life rather startlingly, I have tried to erase /sdb1 from /mnt but it refuses to go, I'm fairly sure that a simple command in a terminal will clear it out! Can anyone tell me what is going on please?

[coffeecat]

It sounds as though you have a line in /etc/fstab that is trying to mount the now defunct Mint sdb1. Removing a folder is not the answer. Post the output of these terminal commands and we can see where to go from there:

cat /etc/fstab
sudo fdisk -lu
sudo blkid

Highlight the output in the terminal, right-click -> copy, and then you will be able to paste the outputs into your post. Please enclose each output between [code] and [/code] tags to preserve formatting. You can use the # icon in the toolbar of the advanced message editor for this if you wish.

[sudodus]

Maybe you have an entry (a line) in the file /etc/fstab that assumes that you still have such a device available to be mounted at /mnt/sdb1. In that case you can edit fstab. It might be a good idea to back it up before editing.

sudo cp -p /etc/fstab /etc/fstab0

sudo nano /etc/fstab

and remove the line 'with sdb1'.

[ortermagic]

Dear coffeecat thank you for the interest here are the results.

ortermagic@cosier:~$ cat /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
# / was on /dev/sdb1 during installation
UUID=50f61fff-1e62-4460-a1bd-3ebe7a51d4b9 /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# swap was on /dev/sdb5 during installation
UUID=9fffaf86-8850-400e-8f3e-aa8a76a8322d none            swap    sw              0       0
/dev/sdb1 /mnt/sdb1 auto nosuid,nodev,nofail,x-gvfs-show 0 0



ortermagic@cosier:~$ sudo fdisk -lu
[sudo] password for ortermagic: 

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0008cee2

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        2048   960030719   480014336   83  Linux
/dev/sda2       960032766   976771071     8369153    5  Extended
/dev/sda5       960032768   976771071     8369152   82  Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000c9325

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System



ortermagic@cosier:~$ sudo blkid
/dev/sda1: UUID="50f61fff-1e62-4460-a1bd-3ebe7a51d4b9" TYPE="ext4" 
/dev/sda5: UUID="9fffaf86-8850-400e-8f3e-aa8a76a8322d" TYPE="swap" 
ortermagic@cosier:~$

[ortermagic]

Thankyou sudo as well, I will try your suggestion

[ortermagic]

I will now restart my computer

[coffeecat]

Dear coffeecat thank you for the interest here are the results.

ortermagic@cosier:~$ cat /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
# / was on /dev/sdb1 during installation
UUID=50f61fff-1e62-4460-a1bd-3ebe7a51d4b9 /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# swap was on /dev/sdb5 during installation
UUID=9fffaf86-8850-400e-8f3e-aa8a76a8322d none            swap    sw              0       0
/dev/sdb1 /mnt/sdb1 auto nosuid,nodev,nofail,x-gvfs-show 0 0

Be very careful when editing /etc/fstab. Making a backup first as sudodus suggests is a good idea. When you installed Ubuntu, your root partition was designated as sdb1 but it is now sda1. The installer put the comment "# / was on /dev/sdb1 during installation" before the line for your root partition, so be careful not to remove the line for your root partition. The line you need to remove is at the end and is:

/dev/sdb1 /mnt/sdb1 auto nosuid,nodev,nofail,x-gvfs-show 0 0

Which is quite an odd line. Do you know where that came from?

[ortermagic]

I removed the line...

/dev/sdb1 /mnt/sdb1 auto nosuid,nodev,nofail,x-gvfs-show 0 0

made a copy (I think) and restarted, so far so good. Bootup seems to take an age though did i do right?

  ortermagic@cosier:~$ cat /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
# / was on /dev/sdb1 during installation
UUID=50f61fff-1e62-4460-a1bd-3ebe7a51d4b9 /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# swap was on /dev/sdb5 during installation
UUID=9fffaf86-8850-400e-8f3e-aa8a76a8322d none            swap    sw              0       0

[sudodus]

It looks good to me. There should be not complaint: "The disk drive for /mnt/sdb1 is not ready or not present". The bootup speed may depend on other things.

[ortermagic]

Thank you for your help.
coffecat No I have no idea where the odd line came from, unless it has something to do with me making a mistake trying to install mint on my spare hard drive
Has anyone noticed any other anomalies in the outputs I posted?
I am getting a seamless boot now but there seems to be an extended hang after grub.