OpenSUSE Install :: Bootup Superblock Issue Related To /dev/disk/?

I decided I needed to expand my openSUSE partition because I was running out of room. There was some unallocated space following my /home and swap partitions that I wanted to assign to my / partition.

So after taking note that bad things could happen (as I've read everywhere), I got myself a copy of GParted (since Yast! partitioner doesn't move partitions, does it?) to start getting the thing to work. Well, actually, I got PartedMagic which has GParted (I realize it could be a problem NOW if they didn't have the latest version).

So the first step was to move the swap partition. I decided to do it one step at a time and only moved the swap partition to the end. That turned out fine...no problems whatsoever.

The next step is where the problem came in. It was moving the /home partition. It took a while to move but once it got to the end, it showed a message that was similar in nature to "error detected" without giving a long list of error messages. If it did, I probably would have copied it down. There wasn't anything in the "logs" either in GParted besides what it showed. Looking back, I probably should've went into /vars/logs to get additional log information but I guess I wasn't smart enough to do so (provided that GParted does leave log messages there which I think it does).

After that, it refreshed the drive and it ended up showing no partitions with an error and saying the only thing it can do is create a new partition table. After that, openSUSE wouldn't boot. After loading, (both normal and failsafe modes) it gives me the message in the link at the bottom. I can still access those partitions fine. Nothing's corrupted. Windows also boots up fine (it's on a different drive though) and reads the affected drive fine. Linux-based LiveCDs (including openSUSE 11.3) reads the partitions fine too.

I've tried using e2fsck on my ext4 partitions with commands I found during a search and they seemed to "fix" those partitions but it still won't boot and gives me the same message. Looking at it carefully, it seems the reason it can't find a superblock is because it can't find part8 of whatever that thing under /dev/disk/by-id/ is.

I would very much prefer a failsafe (or at least mostly failsafe) solution that won't (or is unlikely) to result in requiring the restoration of a backup but I do understand that there is always the chance of something going wrong that will kill everything. Considering that I can still access the data on that drive, I don't believe the data is corrupted. Maybe the drive itself (as in whatever signatures it may leave) but not the filesystems.

This is what I end up with trying to boot into openSUSE (sorry, I don't know how to get the log when it doesn't put it in logs directory: https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B3A...ut=list&num=50