Help mounting HPFS USB drives

English Hardware
#1

Running 11.4/KDE, I need to mount some drives formatted HPFS (OS/2) using a
USB -> ATA adapter. I’ve used this combo before but haven’t tried it before
with 11.4 and it gave me grief with everything after 11.1 but worked - until
now.

First, is HPFS still supported in the kernel? If not, what do I need to get
support

I’ve managed to get NTFS drives to mount in this setup by adding the NTFS
format to /etc/filesystems as discussed in an earlier thread but adding
‘hpfs’ isn’t getting me anywhere. Anyone managed to get an hpfs drive to
mount?

–
WHonea

#2

Have you tried manually mounting like this? (For example assuming /dev/sdb1)

mkdir /mnt/test
mount -t hpfs /dev/sdb1 /mnt/test
#3

BTW, to see what filesystems are supported by the running kernel

cat /proc/filesystems

For reference (with 2.6.34.9-4-desktop), I get

nodev   sysfs
nodev   rootfs
nodev   bdev
nodev   proc
nodev   tmpfs
nodev   devtmpfs
nodev   debugfs
nodev   securityfs
nodev   sockfs
nodev   usbfs
nodev   pipefs
nodev   anon_inodefs
nodev   devpts
        ext3
        ext2
nodev   ramfs
nodev   hugetlbfs
        iso9660
nodev   mqueue
        ext4
nodev   fuse
        fuseblk
nodev   fusectl
nodev   binfmt_misc
nodev   autofs
        hpfs
#4

As you do not even tell what you tried to mount it, how can we know if you did something wrong?

Post the mount command and/or the /etc/fstab entrie (within CODE tags of course) you used. Inclusing of course the error messages you got.

And the adding of NTFS to that file is the by-pass of a bug. That does not add support by magic it only tells the support is there… Do not change files in /etc and the like without proper knowledge. At the least it may be gone at next update, at the mot it will bork your system.

#5

hcvv wrote:

>
> Will Honea;2369825 Wrote:
>> Running 11.4/KDE, I need to mount some drives formatted HPFS (OS/2)
>> using a
>> USB → ATA adapter. I’ve used this combo before but haven’t tried it
>> before
>> with 11.4 and it gave me grief with everything after 11.1 but worked -
>> until
>> now.
>>
>> First, is HPFS still supported in the kernel? If not, what do I need to
>> get
>> support
>>
>> I’ve managed to get NTFS drives to mount in this setup by adding the
>> NTFS
>> format to /etc/filesystems as discussed in an earlier thread but adding
>> ‘hpfs’ isn’t getting me anywhere. Anyone managed to get an hpfs drive
>> to
>> mount?
>>
>> –
>> WHonea
> As you do not even tell what you tried to mount it, how can we know if
> you did something wrong?
>
> Post the mount command and/or the /etc/fstab entrie (within CODE tags
> of course) you used. Inclusing of course the error messages you got.

Problem resolved - and the fs in question IS hpfs, not hfs. The disk is
from an OS/2 machine.

The problem is with 11.4 handling of the USB adapter in conjunction with
hpfs - the disk is never recognized as present hence no /dev/sd(nn) so the
mount command fails. Why it fails with 11.4 where it worked with (some)
earlier versions is moot. I finally resorted to another model USB adapter
and it picks up the hpfs formatted drive right off the bat. Apparently, the
first adapter is doing some sort of content checking and failing while the
second adapter, which is considerably newer, has better capabilities.

Ah, progress… Time to retire the older adapter. The new one supports
sata as well as ata drives and has connectors for laptop drives as well as
full size so it’s probably worth the extra complexity and wires to use it.

–
WHonea

#6

Glad to read that all is sorted. It would have been useful to have provided more info about how you had tried to mount, and this fact too would have been useful

The problem is with 11.4 handling of the USB adapter in conjunction with
hpfs - the disk is never recognized as present hence no /dev/sd(nn) so the
mount command fails.

In general, it can be useful to look at and report the kernel messages via dmesg when diagnosing these type of hardware issues. Saves others with guessing.

#7

deano ferrari wrote:

> In general, it can be useful to look at and report the kernel messages
> via dmesg when diagnosing these type of hardware issues. Saves others
> with guessing.

There is the rub - the system recognizes the adapter but not the attached
drive so no device is created in /dev. You can’t mount a device if the
kernel has no knowlege of it’s presence, much less the format. I just
wasn’t sure that the hpfs fs was still included in the current kernels since
OS/2 has pretty much faded into history.

It’s similar to the problem I see with USB hubs daisy chained - at some
point you get enough hubs in the chain that no more are recognized. I can
duplicate this pretty easily with some cheapy hubs the wife brought home
from Office Depot a while back. One day I’ll get up the energy to plug in
the external power and see if it’s just running out of power in the string
or if it’s an actual code issue. Low priority - I can’t envision any
practical use for that many usb connections, anyway.

–
WHonea

#8

There is the rub - the system recognizes the adapter but not the attached
drive so no device is created in /dev. You can’t mount a device if the
kernel has no knowlege of it’s presence, much less the format.

Correct, that’s where posting dmesg output would have beeb useful in first post.

I just
wasn’t sure that the hpfs fs was still included in the current kernels since
OS/2 has pretty much faded into history.

The following useful for answering that

cat /proc/filesystems

It’s similar to the problem I see with USB hubs daisy chained - at some
point you get enough hubs in the chain that no more are recognized. I can
duplicate this pretty easily with some cheapy hubs the wife brought home
from Office Depot a while back. One day I’ll get up the energy to plug in
the external power and see if it’s just running out of power in the string
or if it’s an actual code issue.

Yep, insufficient power is a comon problem with passive usb hubs.