have changed to this :
/dev/sdb1 /media/myext3 ext3 defaults 1 2
but still no success.
linux-ixjr:/home/graham # mount -a
mount: special device /dev/sdb1 does not exist
many thanks for your help so far. much appreciated.
could the fact the the drive is an RE (Raid Edition) model be effecting this.
I was assured that it could be used as a normal SATA drive and it worked fine in Ubuntu and Mint. Could openSUSE be picking up something they don’t?
I will try to throw something into this mess (making it worse probably).
Your fdisk -l shows there is a partition (/dev/sdb1) completely filling the available space on a disk (/dev/sdb). You want to mount that partition (you do not tell where you want it mounted, so all sorts of guesses are made here by several people). So all the talking about /dev/sdb is nonsense.
When you went to YaST > System > Partitioner, did you see that partition *sdb1 *or not?
It is a bit strange that the device special file /dev/sdb1 does not exist. Please provide the ouput of
ls -l /dev/sd*
It should be in there. It might be possible that during your trials you deleted /dev/sdb1. In that case a reboot must recreate it.
Also I take the freedom of pointing you to SDB:Basics of partitions, filesystems, mount points - openSUSE
because that may make you understand better what you are trying to do.
I’m grateful for any suggestions.
graham@linux-ixjr:~> ls -l /dev/sd*
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 0 2009-09-13 01:33 /dev/sda
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 1 2009-09-13 01:33 /dev/sda1
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 2 2009-09-13 01:33 /dev/sda2
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 3 2009-09-13 01:33 /dev/sda3
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 5 2009-09-13 00:33 /dev/sda5
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 6 2009-09-13 01:33 /dev/sda6
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 16 2009-09-13 01:33 /dev/sdb
The more i play about with openSUSE the more i like it but this might just be the end of it for me if i can’t get it fixed.
There is no partition shown on sdb, just the plain device.
Either this is a bug or the OS is correct and the disk has a serious problem.
su -c "file -s /dev/sdb"
su -c "fdisk -l"
su -c "parted /dev/sdb print"
su -c "/sbin/blkid -c /dev/null"
Possible that there are “leftovers” in the MBR confusing openSUSE that this is a RAID device.
graham@linux-ixjr:~> su -c "file -s /dev/sdb"
Password:
/dev/sdb: x86 boot sector; partition 1: ID=0x83, starthead 1, startsector 63, 321669432 sectors, code offset 0xc0, OEM-ID " м", Bytes/sector 190, sectors/cluster 124, reserved sectors 191, FATs 6, root entries 185, sectors 64514 (volumes <=32 MB) , Media descriptor 0xf3, sectors/FAT 20644, heads 6, hidden sectors 309755, sectors 2147991229 (volumes > 32 MB) , physical drive 0x7e, dos < 4.0 BootSector (0x0)
graham@linux-ixjr:~> su -c "fdisk -l"
Password:
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
graham@linux-ixjr:~> su -c "parted /dev/sdb print"
Password:
Model: ATA WDC WD1600YS-01S (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 165GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 32.3kB 165GB 165GB primary ext3 type=83
graham@linux-ixjr:~> su -c "/sbin/blkid -c /dev/null"
Password:
/dev/sda1: UUID="BC800AC1800A81DE" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sda3: UUID="9898abfe-8677-4abd-aef2-11e3f8d1726f" TYPE="swap"
/dev/sda5: UUID="254bd07c-0924-4383-a8f0-09d0a20f9783" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sda6: UUID="142e8b04-8064-44e5-af06-785f03b21a3b" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sdb: TYPE="isw_raid_member"
I support Akoellh. In your first post the output showed it. I suppose the output was done usng fdisk -l on your openSUSE system. But in fact you do not show how you got it. Is showing the prompt and the command (one more line to copy) a problem? (I see this often in the forums as if the poster wants to hide something from his audience).
It would be strange if in one munite, fdisk -l would shoe /dev/sdb1 and /dev/sdb1 would not exist.
Edit: a bit late, the discussion has already gone further.
Hi,
All the outputs i have posted have been from my openSUSE installation (the only linux install on my machine).
I appreciate you are trying a expose all conceivable errors/possibilities - i am not hiding anything.
thanks for your input. appreciated.
Never seen something like this before.
-
fdisk and parted find the partition sdb1 but blkid fails or at least detects a RAID device (without partitions).
-
What looks very odd to me:
/dev/sdb: x86 boot sector; partition 1: ID=0x83, starthead 1, startsector 63, 321669432 sectors, code offset 0xc0, OEM-ID " м",
Bytes/sector 190, sectors/cluster 124, reserved sectors 191, FATs 6, root entries 185, sectors 64514 (volumes <=32 MB) ,
Media descriptor 0xf3, sectors/FAT 20644, heads 6, hidden sectors 309755, sectors 2147991229 (volumes > 32 MB) ,
physical drive 0x7e, dos < 4.0 BootSector (0x0)
This looks very strange, a typical output looks like this:
file -s /dev/sda
/dev/sda: x86 boot sector; partition 1: ID=0xc, starthead 0, startsector 16065, 192780 sectors;
partition 2: ID=0x82, starthead 0, startsector 208845, 9639000 sectors;
partition 3: ID=0xf, active, starthead 0, startsector 9847845, 615289500 sectors
And thid disk has a lot more partitions (2 primary, 1 extended with several logical partitions on it which cannot be seen here of course).
Somehow openSUSE detects a strange MBR (and the file command will most likely not lie to you, this is really very unusual content for an MBR on a normal Disk with MSDOS type partition table) and as a consequence refuses to create a device for the first partition.
The blkid command actually (AFAIK) invokes what udev detects and udev is the one to decide what to do with a device, so the outputs of fdisk/parted are nice but not relevant for what the system actually does with this hardware.
@Akoellh. This is strange indeed. Do you think it is something in the MBR and/or partition table. When yes, can’t we give an advice to the OP how to rewrite these without destroying the contents of his partition?
I would use fdisk. Deleting partition one (after writing down it was running from 1 - 20023). Creating new partition (running from 1 - 20023), giving it type 83 and then write it to the disk (which would be the same information as before, but create anew). Is there something for the MBR like this?
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.
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If this is really true, then I would use that to backup your data on sdb1 to a usb flash drive or similar, before attempting to play with fdisk partitioning etc.
i have reinstalled ubuntu and transfered the data from my second HD onto the windows partition of the main HD. So the secondary - problematic - drive is now empty.
using gparted it reformatted it in ext3 then tried the openSUSE installer again. Again the same problem with the drive being picked up as software raid. I tried mounting it as raid but encountered an error.
I am at work now but i could post the results from these :
su -c "file -s /dev/sdb"
su -c "fdisk -l"
su -c "parted /dev/sdb print"
su -c "/sbin/blkid -c /dev/null"
from ubuntu if that would help.
p.s. i also tried a Fedora 11 KDE live disc which didn’t detect the drive at all.
If the MBR still shows this strange information (which is likely when only deleting a partition and reformatting it), then this behavior is not suprising.
Wiping the MBR (i.e. with dd) might help.
Then create a new partition table and the desired partition(s).
so, to use dd i just run this in terminal?
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=512 count=1
will that work from a live disc? as i am now getting a grub error 15 when booting from HD.
If /dev/sdb is the correct name, yes (always double check).
If it has the “dd”-command and (again) /dev/sdb is the correct disc (in the live distro, here double checking is even more important), yes.
After doing what?
And if you already ran any dd-command, are you sure you chose the right disc?
Although Error 15 means “File not found” and would not occur when the (wrong) MBR was wiped.
anything dodgy here other than the raid partition?
From yast installation confirmation screen :
System
Processor: 2x Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 3.00GHz
Main Memory: 2 GB
Partitioning
Format partition /dev/sda5 (15.00 GB) for / with ext4
Format partition /dev/sda6 (33.83 GB) for /home with ext4
Format software RAID /dev/md126 (153.38 GB) for /data with ext3
Use /dev/sda3 as swap
Set mount point of /dev/sda1 to /windows/C
Booting
Boot Loader Type: GRUB
Status Location: /dev/sda2 (extended)
Change Location:
Boot from MBR is disabled (enable)
Boot from "/" partition is disabled (enable)
Sections:
+ openSUSE 11.2 (default)
+ Windows
+ Failsafe -- openSUSE 11.2
Order of Hard Disks: /dev/sda, /dev/sdb
Keyboard Layout
English (UK)
Time Zone
Europe / United Kingdom - Hardware Clock Set To Local Time 2009-09-15 - 17:30:55
Default Runlevel
5: Full multiuser with network and display manager
And what do you want to tell us with that?
Ah, now there is some text, what are you doing here?
Do not use any installer, use a live CD and start dd from a command line there, the installer CD might give you a console (CTRL-ALT+F1/2/3/4/5 no idea which one will work).
When i tried to boot when getting home from work. Pre-dd.
Ran dd but still showing up as raid in yast installer. WIll try a reboot.