[ALL DISTROS] SD with multiple distros

[yves mahe]

Hello,

I try to install 4 partitions of equal size on my SANDISK 8 Gb:
Partition 1 : fat for sharing data with products that recognize only fat
Partitions 2 to 4 : ext2 with various distros (FSO on P2, DEBIAN on P3, 
FDOM on P4)

All is done:
  - fdisk
  - format
  - FSO ,DEBIAN and FDOM installs
  - setup u-boot environment

I can boot on partition 2 but not on partitions 3 and 4.

When I make some tests with U-boot, the behavior is very chaotic:

GTA02v6 # mmcinit
Card Type:          SD 2.0 SDHC
Manufacturer:       0x03, OEM "SD"
Product name:       "SU08G", revision 8.0
Serial number:      1882197159
Manufacturing date: 7/2008
MMC/SD size:        3MiB
GTA02v6 # ext2ls mmc 0:2 /
<DIR>       4096 .
<DIR>       4096 ..
<DIR>      16384 lost+found
<DIR>       4096 bin
<DIR>       4096 boot
<DIR>       4096 dev
<DIR>       4096 etc
<DIR>       4096 home
<DIR>       4096 lib
<DIR>       4096 local
<DIR>       4096 media
<DIR>       4096 mnt
<DIR>       4096 proc
<DIR>       4096 sbin
<DIR>       4096 sys
<SYM>          8 tmp
<DIR>       4096 usr
<DIR>       4096 var
<DIR>       4096 .dbus
<DIR>       4096 .e
<DIR>       4096 .local
                0 music.raw
GTA02v6 # ext2ls mmc 0:2 /boot
<DIR>       4096 .
<DIR>       4096 ..
<SYM>         13 uImage
          1775892 uImage-2.6.24
GTA02v6 # ext2ls mmc 0:3 /
<DIR>       4096 .
<DIR>       4096 ..
<DIR>      16384 lost+found
<DIR>  707406378 var
<DIR>          0 boot
<DIR>  707406378 etc
<DIR>  707406378 lib
<DIR>          0 media
<DIR>  707406378 opt
<DIR>          0 sbin
<SYM>          8 tmp
<DIR>  707406378 bin
<DIR>  707406378 dev
<DIR>          0 home
<DIR>  707406378 mnt
<DIR>          0 proc
<DIR>  707406378 sys
<DIR>  707406378 usr
<DIR>  707406378 10
GTA02v6 # ext2ls mmc 0:3 /boot
GTA02v6 # ext2ls mmc 0:4 /
Failed to mount ext2 filesystem...
** Bad ext2 partition or disk - mmc 0:4 **


Partition 2 is well seen by U-boot but neither partition 3 nor 4.
ext2ls mmc 0:2 / >>> partition 2
ext2ls mmc 0:3 / >>> strange view of partition 4
ext2ls mmc 0:3 / >>> nothing

Sander van Grieken noticed (1) "that these partitions have to be in the 
beginning of the SD card.
I wasn't able to boot from partitions starting at the 7GB mark."



Any ideas much appreciated !

(1): 
http://lists.openmoko.org/pipermail/community/2008-September/029400.html

Yves MAHE