Hotmounting eSATA drive

[Mikkel L. Ellertson]

Geoffrey Leach wrote:
> On 05/28/07 11:32:05, Tony Nelson wrote:
>> At 10:32 AM -0700 5/28/07, Geoffrey Leach wrote:
>> >I have an external SATA drive that's usually powered off. It has two
>> >ext3 partitions, FWIW. I find that mount does not recognize the
>> devices
>> >(/dev/sdb1, /dev/sdb2) unless the drive is powered on before booting.
>> >
>> >I expect that this is something that HAL should attend to. Any
>> >suggestions as to what's wrong? HAL works fine with other hot mounted
>> >devices.
>>
>> It may not be HAL.  When you turn it on, does the device appear in the
>> dmesg log?  As Mikkel says, does it appear in /dev?  udevmonitor might
>> help
>> here.  If it is a HAL issue, is "lshal -m" informative?
> 
> Thanks. The problem could not be recreated, but now I have a strategy
> for addressing it (and a set of "working" data) should it reappear.
> 
If this is an intermittent problem, then the problem may be slightly
different. one thing to keep in mind is that USB and firewire drives
are also handled as SCSI drives. So if you have a pen drive plugged
in when you turn on the SATA drive, then the SATA drive may end up
as /dev/sdc instead of /dev/sdb.

One way around this is to create udev rules that create symlinks for
the drive, and use the symlinks in the mount command. I used to do
this for USB "pen" drives I wanted to mount in specific places
before HAL took over mounting them.

You could also write HAL rules to mount the partitions where and how
you want them when you power up the drive. (But you will have to get
someone else to help you with the HAL rules - learing how to write
them is on my todo list.)

Mikkel
-- 

  Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons,
for thou art crunchy and taste good with Ketchup!