: : /dev/sda is MIA - Need to Find & Mount : :

[rfaulkner]

Next in the hit list of questions that is likely easily answered by the higher-minded is this:

Since installation of F-12 from Live CD over 9.10 KK I have "lost" my 250G HDD formerly known as /dev/sda. Can anyone give me some hints on how to tell Fedora about this device and how to connect to it? Attempts to mount it via CLI have not met with success...error indicates that the mount point is not recognized.

Thanks to the most EXCELLENT advice of this community I have quickly been able to make Fedora into what I wanted Ubuntu to be (and couldn't do!) My Nvidia 6800 GS's were picked-up right away and no issues with aspect ratio on my widescreen! (KK botched all of that and had to resort to a special xorg config to "fix" it -- but even with that nothing worked right as 3D was not enabled!) Now with Fedora I have Nvidia configured EASILY and have 3D acceleration running w/o much effort!

WAY TO GO FEDORA DEVELOPERS!!!! : )

Many thanks in advance for any/all advice!

---------- Post added at 09:31 AM CDT ---------- Previous post was at 09:26 AM CDT ----------

System specs:

/dev/sda (250G hdd that is "missing")
/dev/sdb (1000G hdd contains NTFS partition for back-ups and EXT3 partitions for Fedora)

Asus A8N, 4200+, 2G/250G/1000G, XFX 6800 GS
Fedora 12, Gnome (fully updated)

[glennzo]

At the risk of being overly simplistic, what does su -c 'fdisk -l' show?

[rfaulkner]

Remember...I said this should be really easy...here's the output requested:


Disk /dev/sda: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000461e0

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 30400 244187968+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x1367d0e5

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 49753 399640941 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb2 49754 121601 577119060 5 Extended
/dev/sdb5 * 49754 120849 571078588+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb6 120850 121601 6040408+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris


PS> My problem is that I'm not familiar enough with Linux *yet* to easily navigate these issues. Yes, I have much reading and studying ahead (and will do that) but for now I'm just trying to get last kinks worked-out of this build (all of them minor).

[glennzo]

OK, the drive is there and the system sees it. Are you not able to mount this drive for lack of experience or have you tried to mount it and it or the system just won't cooperate?

[rfaulkner]

My problem is a bit of both lack of experience and system just won't cooperate. Output follows after su (I have removed references to my login and machine name).

[root@********]# mount /dev/sda
mount: can't find /dev/sda in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab
[root@********]#


My learning curve issues are that I'm not familiar enough with the logical flow of the file system and required software components in mounting devices or their locations. I've been admin of M$ for 15-years and have taken the Linux "oath" and am learning all I can learn at this point. I've switched from Ubuntu to Fedora as Ubuntu just didn't provide the h/w support I needed and had too many buggie issues. Fedora was my first choice but had too many issues early on but 12 looked like an excellent match for me....so far it has been! Very happy with it and very pleased to be M$ free since the first of the year. Most of my experience at this point is GUI but really need to hit my books and crash on the file system as well as specifics on FC.

Many thanks!

[glennzo]

I understand. This should be fairly straightforward. Open a terminal and log in as root. First you need to create a mount point, somewhere to mount the partition to. I suggest the /mnt folder. At the same time you need to decide what you are going to call this new mount point. Let's use disk1 for now. Type

mkdir /mnt/disk1

You have now created the folder or mount point /mnt/disk1. Now you can mount the partition like this.

mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/disk1

The partition should now be mounted, assuming that there were no error messages. Try listing the contents of /mnt/disk1 with

ls /mnt/disk1

You should see the expected files listed in the output. Now add a line to /etc/fstab so that the partition will be automatically mounted at every boot. Use the nano editor. Type

nano /etc/fstab

At the bottom of the file add this line

/dev/sda1 /mnt/disk1 ntfs-3g defaults 0 0

Save the changes with CTRL/O and exit the editor with CTRL/X. That should do the trick. Reboot, if you wish, and then check the contents of /mnt/disk1 to be sure it worked.

[rfaulkner]

I follow what you're doing (will have to check the man pages for the switches). /mnt/disk1 has been created but cannot mount the drive...get the following error (did a copy/paste from your code):



[root@************]# mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/disk1
ntfs-3g: Failed to access volume '/dev/sda1': No such file or directory

ntfs-3g 2010.3.6 integrated FUSE 27 - Third Generation NTFS Driver
Configuration type 1, XATTRS are on, POSIX ACLS are off

Copyright (C) 2005-2007 Yura Pakhuchiy
Copyright (C) 2006-2009 Szabolcs Szakacsits
Copyright (C) 2007-2010 Jean-Pierre Andre
Copyright (C) 2009 Erik Larsson

Usage: ntfs-3g [-o option[,...]] <device|image_file> <mount_point>

Options: ro (read-only mount), remove_hiberfile, uid=, gid=,
umask=, fmask=, dmask=, streams_interface=.
Please see the details in the manual (type: man ntfs-3g).

Example: ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/windows

Ntfs-3g news, support and information: http://ntfs-3g.org


I see a hint on how to automatically mount my "Storage" drive (NTFS partition on my 1TB drive) that contains FC. Will attempt that and see how it goes as well....

[glennzo]

Any progress? I don't see where there would be a problem with the command I supplied or why it doesn't work for you.

[rfaulkner]

Did some digging before dinner...here's what I found:

Palimpsest Disk Utility sees 250GB HDD as 250 GB Free (Unallocated Space) but in reality it is a "living" Windows x64 NTFS partition w/GRUB2 as bootloader (but not used). Current config has first boot device as /dev/sdb (1TB). All partitions on /dev/sdb are properly seen.

I'll dig more into the procedure above after dinner...cheers!

[rfaulkner]

Thank you so much glennzo for your help! (Again!) I have a feeling that in the absence of connecting to this hdd I'll be xfer'ing data to my accessible b/u partition and go from there. There really isn't anything important on that drive (only M$ data) but the point is of learning and developing this build and skills with Fedora.

Many thanks again!!

[glennzo]

Hello. I wasn't aware that you had updated this thread. I guess if it's seen as unallocated then there is no filesystem to mount, i.e., EXT3, NTFS, etc., hence the mount error.

[rfaulkner]

That's what I came to as well. Interesting that Fedora doesn't see a file system there when there in fact is a file system there. Do you know of any reason why this would occur? Keep in mind that GRUB2 is installed on the MBR of that 250G drive (don't know if that would have any impact).