Barry L. Kline wrote:

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Tim McGeary wrote:

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I can see the device in my /proc/bus/usb/devices file, but fdisk -l doesn't show it at all. I was trying to mount and partition it using Webmin, but I can't figure out the device name I need to give it to mount and partition it. How is the best way to figure that out? This particular server is running CentOS 4.

Unplug the drive. from root: tail -f /var/log/messages

Now plug in the drive and watch the messages scroll by. That'll tell you very easily what the drive assignment is.

Thanks for this suggestion, Barry. I'll try it tomorrow when I get back to the office.

TIm

Tim McGeary '99, '06G Senior Systems Specialist Lehigh University 610-758-4998 tim.mcgeary@lehigh.edu Google Talk: timmcgeary

James A. Peltier wrote:

Tim McGeary wrote:

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Hi all,

As a disclaimer, I'm new to this list and very green administering CentOS. I run it on my test servers and do very basic networking and server administration (most users, permissions, and web app stuff).

I have a backup server that I am using rsync to collect important in-process file for our digital library from both Windows and Linux servers, as well as a specific applications which are updated on a separate test server.

This backup server ran out of space and I have no more internal slots available to add another disk, so I bought a 750 GB Seagate FreeAgent external USB hard drive. I've seen some various issues out there about how Seagate FA HDs go into sleep mode when used in the manner I want to, but all of the people posting about that seemed to be able to mount theirs with no problem.

I can see the device in my /proc/bus/usb/devices file, but fdisk -l doesn't show it at all. I was trying to mount and partition it using Webmin, but I can't figure out the device name I need to give it to mount and partition it. How is the best way to figure that out? This particular server is running CentOS 4.

Thanks, Tim

If it's a brand new drive it will not have a valid partition table. A simple sudo /sbin/fdisk -l will show all drives and their partition tables. The one with an invalid partition table is the one you're interested in.

Sorry, just read again and noticed that fdisk did not show you anything. :(

On Thu, 3 Jan 2008 at 10:28am, Tim McGeary wrote

Actually, your first email made me double check this to see if I was missing something and I was (or maybe it really wasn't there initially). So what I see now is:

Disk /dev/sda: 750.1 GB, 750156374016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 91201 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 1 91201 732572001 7 HPFS/NTFS

This is definitely the drive. So when I try to use Webmin to mount and partition device /dev/sda (and also tried /dev/sda2) as a New Linux Native Filesystem (ext3), I get the error of:

Failed to save mount : Mount failed : mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda, or too many mounted file systems

So I'm guessing I'm using the wrong file system type. What should I use instead of ext3?

The drive is formatted NTFS, which is pretty much useless under Linux. Assuming you intend to only use this drive in Linux, you simply need to reformat the drive.

mke2fs -j /dev/sda1 mount -t ext3 /dev/sda1 /mnt/point

Obviously, substitute your desired mount point for "/mnt/point".

On Sat, 5 Jan 2008 at 11:20am, MHR wrote

On Jan 3, 2008 9:34 AM, Joshua Baker-LePain jlb17@duke.edu wrote:

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The drive is formatted NTFS, which is pretty much useless under Linux.

Forgive me, but this is simply not true. There is a fully functional NTFS module available for read-write support in CentOS 5 (if you build your own kernel), and I haven't actually looked at the CentOSplus kernel yet.

Erm, from the kernel documentation -- "The driver currently supports read-only mode (with no fault-tolerance, encryption or journalling) and very limited, but safe, write support" and "The biggest limitation at present is that files/directories cannot be created or deleted." Also, AIUI, permissions are nowhere near the *nix way.

It may not be completely useless overall, but it is certainly useless ot the OP.

On Saturday 05 January 2008 21:19:28 MHR wrote:

On Jan 5, 2008 12:07 PM, Joshua Baker-LePain jlb17@duke.edu wrote:

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Erm, from the kernel documentation -- "The driver currently supports read-only mode (with no fault-tolerance, encryption or journalling) and very limited, but safe, write support" and "The biggest limitation at present is that files/directories cannot be created or deleted." Also, AIUI, permissions are nowhere near the *nix way.

Good point.

I was using the NTFS module, with write support, in CentOS 4.4, before I converted all my drives to ext3, but I don't recall if I ever tried to create a directory on the NTFS partitions.

mhr

Have a look at NTFS-3G. I have been using it for about two years now on my MDV boxes, without any problems reading and writing to a 60Gb laptop drive in a usb external enclosure. I will be installing it on my CentOS 5.0 box when I get the time to finish setting it up. Soon I hope !

on 1/3/2008 7:28 AM Tim McGeary spake the following:

James A. Peltier wrote:

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James A. Peltier wrote:

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Tim McGeary wrote:

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Hi all,

[snip]

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I can see the device in my /proc/bus/usb/devices file, but fdisk -l doesn't show it at all. I was trying to mount and partition it using Webmin, but I can't figure out the device name I need to give it to mount and partition it. How is the best way to figure that out? This particular server is running CentOS 4.

Thanks, Tim

If it's a brand new drive it will not have a valid partition table. A simple sudo /sbin/fdisk -l will show all drives and their partition tables. The one with an invalid partition table is the one you're interested in.

Sorry, just read again and noticed that fdisk did not show you anything. :(

Actually, your first email made me double check this to see if I was missing something and I was (or maybe it really wasn't there initially). So what I see now is:

Disk /dev/sda: 750.1 GB, 750156374016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 91201 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 1 91201 732572001 7 HPFS/NTFS

This is definitely the drive. So when I try to use Webmin to mount and partition device /dev/sda (and also tried /dev/sda2) as a New Linux Native Filesystem (ext3), I get the error of:

Failed to save mount : Mount failed : mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda, or too many mounted file systems

So I'm guessing I'm using the wrong file system type. What should I use instead of ext3?

It is formatted with NTFS since it was probably intended for a windows system. You can redo it to ext3 if you are only going to use it on the linux box. Since you are going to do it from webmin, you can delete the original partition, create a new one for linux using the entire drive, and format it. You have to use the Partitions on local disks tab in webmin to format the drive BEFORE mounting it.