Installing a new hard disk

Robert Meyer meyer_rm at yahoo.com
Fri Aug 15 07:40:58 EDT 2003 

--- Asheville Joe <josephj at main.nc.us> wrote:
> OK.  What else is new?  I don't know how to run fdisk!  It seemed simple 
> enough, but below is my attempt.
> 
> [root at localhost bigbird]# man fdisk
> [root at localhost bigbird]# fdisk /dev/hdb1
> 
> Unable to open /dev/hdb1

This is expected.  You can only fdisk the base device, not a partition/slice.


> [root at localhost bigbird]# fdisk /dev/hdb
> 
> Unable to open /dev/hdb

Looks like it doesn't know that /dev/hdb is there which seems to indicate that
the disk was not in the slot when the machine was booted.

> [root at localhost bigbird]# mount /dev/hdb1 /mnt/removable
> mount: mount point /mnt/removable does not exist
> [root at localhost bigbird]# ls /mnt
> cdrom/  dos_hda1/  dos_hda5/  floppy/  removeable/  win_c2/  win_d2/  win_e/
> [root at localhost bigbird]# mount /dev/hdb1 removable
> mount: mount point removable does not exist

You keep dropping the 'e' out of removeable (not removable).  Don't you HATE
when computers do what you tell them, and not what you mean???


> [root at localhost bigbird]# man fdisk
> [root at localhost bigbird]# ls /dev/hd*
> /dev/hda@  /dev/hda1@  /dev/hda2@  /dev/hda5@  /dev/hda6@  /dev/hda7@  
> /dev/hda8@  /dev/hda9@  /dev/hdc@
> [root at localhost bigbird]#
> 
> The other drive (4GB IDE) works fine when installed and is /dev/hdb1 
> (/mnt/removeable).  BTW, What are all these at signs for and what's 
> /dev/hdc?  Does it mean I got the hard drive jumper set wrong?

The '@' signs mean that those are symbolic links.  In all likelyhood, the
actual drive names are /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part? where the '?' is
a number from 1 to 9 and /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/disk which refers to
the whole disk for '/dev/hda'.  Drives are as followed (in the /dev/hd?
context)
hda - primary master
hdb - primary slave
hdc - secondary master
hdd - secondary slave

You may have a CDROM drive on the secondary interface as master which would be
/dev/hdc.

Hope this helps...

Cheers!

Bob
> 
> Thanks,
>        Joe
> 
> This is what cfdisk displays (with some whitespace deleted).
> 
>                                   cfdisk 2.11x
> 
>                                 Disk Drive: /dev/hda
>                           Size: 30735581184 bytes, 30.7 GB
>                 Heads: 255   Sectors per Track: 63   Cylinders: 3736
> 
> Name        Flags       Part Type       FS Type [Label] ize (MB)
>  --------------------------------------------------------------------
> hda1  Boot               Primary        Win95 FAT32 3668.48
> hda5                     Logical        Win95 FAT32 3553.33
> hda6                     Logical        Linux ext2    16.46
> hda7                     Logical        Linux ext3  6407.50
> hda8                     Logical        Linux swap   830.76
> hda9                     Logical        Linux ext3 16253.16
> 
> Robert Meyer wrote:
> 
> >Well, changing the line in fstab only makes it stop trying to fsck on the
> way
> >up.  All other file system things that you want to do, you still have to do.
> >
> >If you have a new drive and want to use it with linux, then you have to
> fdisk
> >it and do either 'mke2fs -j /dev/hdb1' or 'mke2fs /dev/hdb1' (journalled or
> >not) and then mount the drive.  I suspect that you can do that from the
> >mandrake control center.  This assumes you're going to make all one
> partition.
> >
> >Cheers!
> >
> >Bob
> >--- Asheville Joe <josephj at main.nc.us> wrote:
> >  
> >
> >>I was hoping it was something simple like that! I'll try that. Then 
> >>what? mkfs and it's cousins have a bunch of options I don't really 
> >>understand. Or will harddrake do it for me?
> >>
> >>Joe
> >>
> >>Robert Meyer wrote:
> >>
> >>    
> >>
> >>>It's bombing out 'cuz you're telling it to fsck the thing in your fstab.
> >>>
> >>>Change the fstab line to read:
> >>>/dev/hdb1 /mnt/removeable ext3 user,noauto,rw,suid,exec 0 0
> >>>
> >>>Hope this helps...
> >>>
> >>>Cheers!
> >>>
> >>>Bob
> >>>--- Asheville Joe <josephj at main.nc.us> wrote:
> >>> 
> >>>
> >>>      
> >>>
> >>>>Hi.  Linux 101 question:
> >>>>
> >>>>I bought a new hard drive (for use with my new - not purchased yet - 
> >>>>computer).
> >>>>
> >>>>I have two hard drives in my current computer, the main one (dual boot 
> >>>>Linux and WIN98), and one in a removable bay.
> >>>>
> >>>>I have the removable one (hdb1) set as noauto in fstab.
> >>>>
> >>>>So, I shut down my computer, pulled the old removable drive out and put 
> >>>>the new one in thinking it would boot up fine and let me figure out how 
> >>>>to format the new drive to ext3.
> >>>>
> >>>>Oh well!  Mandrake (9.1 RC2) sees the new drive, can't read it and gets 
> >>>>upset.  It will only boot into maintenance mode and I don't know enough 
> >>>>to proceed.  That wasn't too bad, but I thought that having it set to 
> >>>>noauto would have gotten me around this.
> >>>>
> >>>>So, I shutdown and removed the new drive then rebooted.  It still won't 
> >>>>let me past maintenance mode because it's missing it's beloved drive.
> >>>>
> >>>>Questions:
> >>>>1) How do I set up my computer so that it is happy whether or not hdb1 
> >>>>is there?
> >>>>
> >>>>2) How do I put the new drive in and format it (mkfs.ext3?)?  It's a 
> >>>>120GB IDE drive that I will probably use for media files and image 
> >>>>backups of the main drive on my new system when I get it.  (It will be 
> >>>>installed in the new computer - so Bob, don't yell at me for putting 
> >>>>more stuff in this old clunker. ;))
> >>>>
> >>>>3) If I want to rename my drives - e.g. from dos_hda1 to cdrive_hda1, 
> >>>>etc., do I have to do anything other than change the entries in 
> >>>>/etc/fstab?  Is there anything to watch out for?
> >>>>
> >>>>Thanks.
> >>>>
> >>>>Joe
> >>>>
> >>>>My /etc/fstab:
> >>>>
> >>>>/dev/hda7 / ext3 defaults 1 1
> >>>>/dev/hda6 /boot ext2 defaults 1 2
> >>>>none /dev/pts devpts mode=0620 0 0
> >>>>/dev/hda9 /home ext3 defaults 1 2
> >>>>none /mnt/cdrom supermount 
> >>>>dev=/dev/scd0,fs=auto,ro,--,iocharset=iso8859-1,codep
> >>>>age=850,umask=0 0 0
> >>>>/dev/hda1 /mnt/dos_hda1 vfat 
> >>>>iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,umask=0,defaults 0
> >>>>0
> >>>>/dev/hda5 /mnt/dos_hda5 vfat 
> >>>>iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,umask=0,defaults 0
> >>>>0
> >>>>none /mnt/floppy supermount 
> >>>>dev=/dev/fd0,fs=auto,--,iocharset=iso8859-1,sync,cod
> >>>>epage=850,umask=0 0 0
> >>>>/dev/hdb1 /mnt/removeable ext3 user,noauto,rw,suid,exec 1 2
> >>>>none /proc proc defaults 0 0
> >>>>/dev/hda8 swap swap defaults 0 0
> >>>>
> >>>>I shut down, put my old drive back in and it works as advertized.
> >>>>
> >>>>[root at localhost mnt]# mount /dev/hdb1 /mnt/removeable
> >>>>[root at localhost mnt]# cd removeable
> >>>>[root at localhost removeable]# ls
> >>>>[root at localhost removeable]# df
> >>>>Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
> >>>>/dev/hda7             5.9G  2.4G  3.2G  43% /
> >>>>/dev/hda6              16M  2.4M   13M  17% /boot
> >>>>/dev/hda9              15G  328M   15G   3% /home
> >>>>/dev/hda1             3.5G  2.3G  1.2G  66% /mnt/dos_hda1
> >>>>/dev/hda5             3.4G  876M  2.5G  26% /mnt/dos_hda5
> >>>>/dev/hdb1             4.0G   33M  3.7G   1% /mnt/removeable
> >>>>
> >>>>[root at localhost removeable]# cd ..
> >>>>[root at localhost mnt]# umount /dev/hdb1
> >>>>[root at localhost mnt]#
> >>>>
> >>>>   
> >>>>
> >>>>        
> >>>>
> >>>__________________________________
> >>>Do you Yahoo!?
> >>>Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
> >>>http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
> >>>
> >>> 
> >>>
> >>>      
> >>>
> >
> >
> >__________________________________
> >Do you Yahoo!?
> >Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
> >http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
> >
> >  
> >
> 
> 


__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com

More information about the nflug mailing list