Difficulty getting a large disk mounted

Tue Feb 22 14:38:56 UTC 2005

> Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2005 21:05:03 +0800
> From: Robert Storey <y2kbug at ms25.hinet.net>
> Subject: Re: Difficulty getting a large disk mounted
> To: For users of Fedora Core releases
> <fedora-list at redhat.com> Message-ID:
> <20050222210503.08d7edf8.y2kbug at ms25.hinet.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>
> On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 20:54:35 -0700
> Craig White <craigwhite at azapple.com> wrote:
>
> > On Mon, 2005-02-21 at 21:31 -0500, Matt Considine wrote:
> > > > Message: 2
> > > > Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 17:13:24 -0700
> > > > From: Craig White <craigwhite at azapple.com>
> > > > Subject: Re: Difficulty getting a large disk
> > > > mounted. To: fedora-list at redhat.com
> > > > Message-ID:
> > > >
> <1109031204.5261.8.camel at lin-workstation.azapple.com>
> > > > Content-Type: text/plain
> > > > On Mon, 2005-02-21 at 18:22 -0500, Matt Considine
> > > > wrote:
> > > >>Hi,
> > > >>I've checked the archives and cannot find commentary
> > > on this.  >Hoping I >didn't overlook something, here
> > > goes ... >>
> > > >>Running FC3 and Gnome, I am trying to get a third
> > > harddisk >recognized. >This one had a partition (11G)
> > > for the Win99 OS and >the remaining >partition was
> > > divided up into virtual drives.  Total >size is 60G if
> > > I >recall. >>
> > > >>The hardware brower recognizes this as
> > > >>
> > > >>     Device Start End   Size(MB)  Type
> > > >>/dev/hdd
> > > >>     /hdd1  1     1460  11453     fat32
> > > >>            1     1460  11453     Free space
> > > >>     /hdd2  1461  7296  45779     No filesystem
> > > >>            7297  7298     10     Free space
> > > >>
> > > >>These are associated with subdirectories,
> > > respectively, >>   /mnt/boot
> > > >>   /mnt/root
> > > >>
> > > >>I can see the files on "boot" without a problem.
> > > But I cannot >>see the files on "root".
> > > >>
> > > >>Can someone either tell me how or point me to the
> > > instructions to >get>these files recognized?  When I
> > > type (as root) >>
> > > >>   mount -t vfat /dev/hdd2 /mnt/root
> > > >>
> > > >>I get the following message :
> > > >>   mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock
> > > on /dev/hdd2, >>          or too many mounted file
> > > systems >>
> > > >>Any help would be appreciated, as well as everyone's
> > > patience if I >
> > > >>missed something simple.
> > > >
> > > > -----
> > > > I guess I don't understand exactly what you are
> > > > saying.
> > > > I can see that there is a partition /dev/hdd2 but I
> > > > don't understand your comment about the rest of the
> > > > the partition being divided into virtual drives.
> > > >
> > > > Then you say that you called these things /mnt/boot
> > > > and /mnt/root but /dev/hdd1 is fat32 so that hardly
> > > > qualifies as a suitable partition for a linux boot
> > > > and /dev/hdd2 - at least on appearance doesn't have
> > > > a suitable filesystem at all. The free space
> leftovers seem to indicate some type of funky partitioning
> > > > tool was used. I am gathering that if you did try to
> > > > install a filesystem (sometimes called 'formatting'
> > > > or'initializing') that it didn't succeed.
> > > >
> > > > If there is no valuable data on the /dev/hdd2, you
> > > > could probably just from command line...
> > > >
> > > > mkfs -t [ext3|ext2|vfat] /dev/hdd2
> > > >
> > > > I always had problems creating vfat partitions
> > > > larger than 32mb. Perhaps that is just me.
> > > >
> > > > if you feel that you had indeed created a filesystem
> > > > on /dev/hdd2 like in Windows or something else and
> > > > indeed have valuable data on that drive, then
> > > > re-examine by booting Windows or the tool you used
> > > > to create it and see if it's still there.
> > > > Craig
> > >
> > > (apologies for the format of the prior response...)
> > >
> > > It appears that the other harddisk was formatted using
> > > "EZ-Drive".  A Google search doesn't seem to show
> > > anything discussing FC3's ability to co-exist with
> > > this.  Other than putting it into another system,
> > >   booting,  etc, etc, are there ideas?  (Installing an
> > > NTFS driver was -  predictably  - of no help).
> > ----
> > I guess I don't understand how you can keep asking for
> > help when you don't reveal the details of the problem. I
> > will ask in another way?
> > What is supposed to be on this /dev/hdd2 ?
> >
> > Is it formatted for vfat (fat32) filesystem?
> >
> > If not formatted for vfat (fat32) - what format did you
> > choose when you created it?  EZ Drive might simply
> > create the partition and not format it for any
> > particular purpose.
> > Are there any files on this partition?  Do you expect to
> > find them?
> > Craig
>
> I'm also confused. Do you want to access the data on the
> drive, or do you want to repartition and reformat this
> drive to use Linux? If it's the latter, Fedora's tools
> kind of suck (no cfdisk). Easiest solution I'm aware of is
> to download a Knoppix CD, boot it, and run cfdisk to
> repartition the hard drive (or else download a cfdisk rpm
> from somewhere). You then install a filesystem with a
> command like:
>
>    mkfs.ext3 /dev/hdd1
>
> Then you would mount it:
>
>    mount /dev/hdd1 /somewhere
>
> You could mount it automatically on bootup by editing
> /etc/fstab.
>
>   /dev/hdd1 /somewhere ext3 defaults 0 0
>
> regards,
> Robert

Sorry for creating any confusion.

The drive has data on it that I want to move over to the FC3
system already installed.  The data is in a Windows
filesystem
structure and I don't want to have to put it into another
system, boot it, hook it up to the LAN, etc.  I just want to
get the existing FC3 system to recognize it so that I can
pull
the large files off that I need.  Once that is accomplished,
repartitioning it using and ext2 or ext3 filesystem would be
perfectly fine.

Imagine the situation as this : you've got a perfectly well-
running FC3 installation.  Now you need more diskspace. 
Someone
hands you a harddisk that had Win98 and it's filestructure
on
it.  The disk was formatted (apparently) using EZ-Drive. 
You
are welcome to reformat the disk, but only after copying a
number of files over to the FC3 installation.

That's as clear as I can make the situation.

TIA,
Matt