Can't mount second hard drive

Hi,

I am a recent (very recent, about 1 hour ago…) convertee from Ubuntu.

This is my first foray from ubuntu (other than Mint) so i am a little bit lost.

I am trying to mount a hard drive that only a few hours ago was fine in Ubuntu.

Can anyone help?

Here is the output from fdisk -l :

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80000000000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9726 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x41ab2316

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1        3187    25599546    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2   *        3188        9561    51199155    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda3            9562        9726     1325362+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda5            3188        5146    15727635   83  Linux
/dev/sda6            5146        9561    35471457   83  Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 164.7 GB, 164696555520 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 20023 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xd999b755

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1               1       20023   160834716   83  Linux

the drive in question is sdb1. It is formated in ext3 and contains data i need to access.

I am pretty sure this is going to be something dumb that i’m missing but any help is appreciated.

Can you also post the output of

mount

If using KDE 4, your external drive will not mount, until you click on the appropriate drive icon within Dolphin (file manager) for example. It should show up after this.

/dev/sda5 on / type ext4 (rw,acl,user_xattr)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
debugfs on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,mode=0620,gid=5)
/dev/sda6 on /home type ext4 (rw,acl,user_xattr)
/dev/sda1 on /windows/C type fuseblk (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,default_permissions,blksize=4096)
rpc_pipefs on /var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs type rpc_pipefs (rw)

thanks for the speedy reply.

It is an internal HD, not external and i cannot find a drive icon to click on.

For internal drives, you may need to adjust /etc/fstab permissions. The easiest (graphical) way to do this, is to use YaST > System > Partitioner utility. Navigate to the volume concerned, and edit the fstab options so that the you have access to it as user.

A useful reference for you:

HowTo Mount NTFS Filesystem Partition Read Write Access in openSUSE 10, 11

Edit: Ignore the ntfs info, just the permissions info.

cheers,

in partitioner whenever i try to edit anything to do with the /dev/sdb i get a message saying it is in use.

I try :

umount /dev/sdb

i get a message :

Could not find /dev/sdb in mtab
umount: /dev/sdb is not mounted (according to mtab)

i have also tried the above using sdb1

It will probably be mounted by root. From a console:

mount (to see what is actually mounted and where)

You should be able to unmount it with

su (to become root, enter root password when prompted)
umount /dev/sdb1 (or whatever the appropriate device is)

Output (as above) from ‘mount’

graham@linux-ixjr:~> mount
/dev/sda5 on / type ext4 (rw,acl,user_xattr)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
debugfs on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,mode=0620,gid=5)
/dev/sda6 on /home type ext4 (rw,acl,user_xattr)
/dev/sda1 on /windows/C type fuseblk (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,default_permissions,blksize=4096)
rpc_pipefs on /var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs type rpc_pipefs (rw)
linux-ixjr:/home/graham # umount /dev/sdb1
umount: /dev/sdb1: not found
linux-ixjr:/home/graham # umount /dev/sdb
umount: /dev/sdb: not mounted

Sorry, getting confused myself. Your previous results showed that sdb1 was not mounted. Try editing /etc/fstab directly.

From gnome:

gnomesu gedit /etc/fstab

From KDE:

kdesu kwrite /etc/fstab

You will need to add a line like this:

/dev/sdb1 /media/myext3 ext3 defaults 1 2

You will also have to create a directory ‘/media/myext3’ to act as a mountpoint, and make sure you have r/w permissions set.

When done, execute ‘mount -a’ from root command prompt.

More info here:

http://en.opensuse.org/Fstab

http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Basics_of_partitions,_filesystems,_mount_points

linux-ixjr:/home/graham # mount -a
mount: /dev/sdb already mounted or /media/myext3 busy
linux-ixjr:/home/graham # umount /dev/sdb
umount: /dev/sdb: not mounted

am i reading this correct?

/dev/sdb is already mounted before ‘mount -a’ yet when running ‘umount’ it is not mounted?

To the op, when you try mounting it in yast2 partitioner did you make a directory where to mount? Which should be the right thing to do. There is a box in yast2 partioner where you can add the directory for sdb1. Should look like this /name assigned to sdb1.

Post your /etc/fstab contents.

ZootHornRollo wrote:
> Code:
> --------------------
> linux-ixjr:/home/graham # mount -a
> mount: /dev/sdb already mounted or /media/myext3 busy
> linux-ixjr:/home/graham # umount /dev/sdb
> umount: /dev/sdb: not mounted
> --------------------
>
>
> am i reading this correct?
>
> /dev/sdb is already mounted before ‘mount -a’ yet when running ‘umount’
> it is not mounted?

You can mount a device (/dev/sdb) only when it does not have a
partition table such as a floppy or a CD. If it has a partition table
as yours clearly does, you must mount the partitions. The error
message sucks.

You must use 'mount /dev/sdb1 /mountpoint

fstab :

/dev/disk/by-id/ata-HDS728080PLA380_PFDHU0SXUD6BHX-part3 swap                 swap       defaults              0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-HDS728080PLA380_PFDHU0SXUD6BHX-part5 /                    ext4       acl,user_xattr        1 1
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-HDS728080PLA380_PFDHU0SXUD6BHX-part6 /home                ext4       acl,user_xattr        1 2
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-HDS728080PLA380_PFDHU0SXUD6BHX-part1 /windows/C           ntfs-3g    users,gid=users,fmask=133,dmask=022,locale=en_GB.UTF-8 0 0
/dev/sdb /media/myext3 ext3 defaults 1 2 
proc                 /proc                proc       defaults              0 0
sysfs                /sys                 sysfs      noauto                0 0
debugfs              /sys/kernel/debug    debugfs    noauto                0 0
devpts               /dev/pts             devpts     mode=0620,gid=5       0 0

it won’t let me edit anything to do with this drive as it is in use (apparently! ;))

i was going to try reinstalling openSUSE again. I got to the partitioning stage and noticed that the drive in question appears but (i could be wrong) it appears as RAID.

/dev/md126 MDRAID 153.39GB

Even during the partitioner on the live disk the drive cannot be edited as it is in use.

I tried the installer from the Ubuntu Live disc which detects the drive as a normal ext3 partition and allows it to be mounted/edited.

Change this

/dev/sdb /media/myext3 ext3 defaults 1 2

to this

/dev/sdb1 /media/myext3 ext3 defaults 1 2

or this if you want acl control (as explained here)

/dev/sdb1 /media/myext3 ext3 acl,user_xattr 1 2

Then reboot.