Difficulty getting a large disk mounted

Robert kerplop at sbcglobal.net
Thu Feb 24 16:26:08 UTC 2005


Robert wrote:
> Jeff Vian wrote:
> 
>> On Wed, 2005-02-23 at 08:26 -0700, Robin Laing wrote:
>>
>>> Jeff Vian wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Tue, 2005-02-22 at 15:54 +0000, Nigel Wade wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> mconsidine at netreach.net wrote:
>>>>> 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
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 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
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> According to installations instructions I found for EZ-Drive, you 
>>>>> cannot use a EZ-Drive formatted disk with anything but Windows. 
>>>>> From the partition table you showed earlier that would seem to be 
>>>>> the case. /dev/hdd1 shows as FAT32 and may be ok, but the rest of 
>>>>> the partition table doesn't make a lot of sense.
>>>>>
>>>>> What do you get if you run 'fdisk -l /dev/hdd' from a command line?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Now you are tickling some long buried memories.
>>>>
>>>> Is EZ-Drive one of the disk compression tool that were popular some
>>>> years ago?   If so, it _will_ only work in Winblows and the only option
>>>> I know of is to put it in a windows machine and use the LAN to move the
>>>> files.
>>>>
>>>> I have not used those tools since drives of 6GB and larger came
>>>> available, but I know they had the driver for the compression on the
>>>> boot sector so it will work with Winblows, but not on other OSes.
>>>> The actual data was in a compressed file, not written to a filesystem.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> This is a good answer.  It isn't really a compression program but a 
>>> translation program to work with larger drives than the bios or OS 
>>> would handle.  I also found that EZ based drives may not work on 
>>> newer motherboards as they are detected properly by the bios.
>>>
>>
>>
>> Now you are getting back to even more fogged memory. :-)  I dimly
>> remember a time when drives were larger than the BIOS could recognize
>> and the drivers needed to map them for BIOS to handle. Have not used a
>> machine with that old a BIOS for some time though.
>>
>>
>>> I now remember this software and found this link that will explain 
>>> that what you say is the only way.
>>>
>>> http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/translation.html
>>>
>>
>> Good point, and a handy reference for those times when needed.
>>
>>
>>> Instead of spending all this time to get around the problem, put the 
>>> drive in an old computer and transfer the files.
>>>
>>> I did see that there was a kernel patch some time ago that would 
>>> allow drives with overlays to work.  Search google for an answer.
>>>
>>> -- 
>>> Robin Laing
>>>
>>
>>
> Speaking of fogged memories, there exists a utility than can recover 
> partition tables. I THINK it will get rid of the evil crap deposited by 
> the likes of Max-Blast and calculate a partition table that will allow 
> the partitions to be mounted by Fedora or Windows.  I have an idle drive 
> in another box with stuff dating back to Win3.1 that I thought was lost 
> forever until I found the program.
> I'll keep trying to remember the program's name but I'm sure that one of 
> you youngsters will think of it 'way before I do.
> 
Replying to myself followed by a 'duck and cover' maneuver...
The name of the GPL program I mentioned earlier is TESTDISK
You can read instructions and download at 
http://www.cgsecurity.org/index.html?testdisk.html

Good luck!




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