Opensuse doesnt see my partitions.

I have 2 harddrives, and they are both partition i have around 5 partitions but in opensuse i cannot find them.

And the partitions are in FAT32 format and C: is NTFS.

cat /etc/fstab
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_ST3160023AS_5MT2Q5PV-part5 /boot                ext3       acl,user_xattr        1 2
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_ST3160023AS_5MT2Q5PV-part6 swap                 swap       defaults              0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_ST3160023AS_5MT2Q5PV-part7 /                    ext3       acl,user_xattr        1 1
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_ST3160023AS_5MT2Q5PV-part8 /home                ext3       acl,user_xattr        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


# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x2136e4ab

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1       30402   244196472   42  SFS

Disk /dev/sdb: 160.0 GB, 160000000000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19452 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000bd8bc

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1               1       19452   156248158+   f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdb5               1           9       72229+  83  Linux
/dev/sdb6              10         271     2104483+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb7             272        2882    20972826   83  Linux
/dev/sdb8            2883       19452   133098493+  83  Linux

According to “fdisk -l” the format is SFS and not NTFS nor FAT32. I do not know if it is even possible to mount SFS under Linux. Isn’t SFS encrypted, which means it should be impossible to mount ? (should it not ?? - is that not the entire idea behind an encrypted partition? ). Anyway, I really do not know. Hopefully someone who knows better than I can chime in.

It only does this in opensuse installed on my harddrive if i load opensuse live cd and boot from it, it will see all my partitions even with labels saying “videos/apps/games” “Program files” “Documents” but as soon as i use the install from harddrive it does this and i am not able to see them.

I dont know if this is related to anything, i have vista installed i remmeber a encryption update could this be it, i also created all of my partitions using vista partition feature but i set them to FAT32.

Type 42 SFS is the designation for a little known filesystem called “encrypted DOS”. Of course you don’t have one of those. I have read that drives sometimes appear erroneously as 42 SFS if they are dynamic drives. Did you enable dynamic drives in vista?

On Fri, 15 Aug 2008 19:56:05 GMT
swerdna <swerdna@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:

>
> Type 42 SFS is the designation for a little known filesystem called
> “encrypted DOS”. Of course you don’t have one of those. I have read
> that drives sometimes appear erroneously as 42 SFS if they are dynamic
> drives. Did you enable dynamic drives in vista?
>
>

It’s quite possible swerdna is on to something there…

Another oddity I find is that you have all four linux partitions inside a
type ‘f’ extended partition on /dev/sdb.

To be honest, it’s been so long since I’ve used an extended partition that I
may misremember things, but… icky!!

Re-read your initial post… am confused by what you described:

“Have 2 harddrives, with around 5 partitions”… “partitions are in FAT32
format, and C: is NTFS”

I see FOUR workable partitions on /dev/sdb… One SWAP partition (sdb6-2GB),
a ‘/boot’ partition (sdb5-70MB), the ‘/’ (root) partition (sdb7-20GB) and
the ‘/home’ partition (sdb8-126GB)

There’s also that oddity on /dev/sda1 (the SFS/type 42 partition).

From what I can see… there are NO NTFS partitions, nor are there any
FAT32 partitions.

Linux doesn’t use drive letters like Windows, and from your /etc/fstab,
they’re being mounted to proper places. Those particular partitions
(/, /boot, /home, swap) are all working great!

Were you expecting to see C:, D:, E:, F:… ?

There are many new concepts to learn, the directory structure and how
‘drives’ are perceived. Some help may be found on the opensuse concepts
page:

http://en.opensuse.org/Concepts

With a paragraph talking about the directory structure and linux found
partway in:

http://en.opensuse.org/Concepts#Linux_Directory_Structure

Hope this helps

Loni


L R Nix
lornix@lornix.com

I did do that, while in live CD is there anything i can change for those partitions for it to been seen once i have installed opensuse?

I have two hard drives one is 250gb anther is 160. Over both of those harddrives i have partitions created on them that aren’t showing in opensuse.

In live CD when i go through the install process and it asks where to install linux i can see the partitions with labels.

Thanks for those links loni, when i was reffering to C:/ i ment that the root of windows is the only directory that is NTSF the rest are FAT32 dynamic.

I have back ups of my data, i am deciding i just want to start the partitions from scratch within opensuse hopefully it is simple as vista partitioner was lol.

Do i want to create extensions or fat32? and as you said linux does not label a,b,c,d,e,f ect.

On Sat, 16 Aug 2008 06:46:03 GMT
blastaz <blastaz@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:

>
> I have back ups of my data, i am deciding i just want to start the
> partitions from scratch within opensuse hopefully it is simple as vista
> partitioner was lol.
>
> Do i want to create extensions or fat32? and as you said linux does not
> label a,b,c,d,e,f ect.
>
>

If you wanted to start from scratch with opensuse, you could use the rescue
function of the boot cd/dvd and then wipe out the partition table
on /dev/sdb. You could use ‘fdisk /dev/sdb’ to do this, using the delete
command.

fdisk /dev/sdb
{press ‘m’ for menu of commands}

–OR-- a little more drastic, but slighty easier method:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=1024 count=512K

which zeros out the first 512Meg of the hard disk. Be VERY careful to get
the correct drive… this zaps a drive. (I use this as it fixes some other
potential issues too)

Afterwards, exit the rescue cd/dvd, and begin the installation procedure.
Select /dev/sdb to install to, and since it’ll see an empty drive, it will
auto-create a partition layout for you. Accept that and continue installing.

Hope this helps

Loni


L R Nix
lornix@lornix.com

Thanks for the help i appreciate it, i was able to recreate the partitions again and place my back up data. So i am now using all of opensuse and i am not finding it much easier to configure and understand thanks!

Sorry if this is difficult to understand i am brazilian thank you.

On Sat, 16 Aug 2008 08:16:03 GMT
blastaz <blastaz@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:

>
> Thanks for the help i appreciate it, i was able to recreate the
> partitions again and place my back up data. So i am now using all of
> opensuse and i am not finding it much easier to configure and
> understand thanks!
>
> Sorry if this is difficult to understand i am brazilian thank you.
>
>

Congratulations!

Enjoy!

Loni


L R Nix
lornix@lornix.com