problem mounting a old unix hd

Hi to everyone , my name is Alex and i am a newbie …

I am trying to mount a hd from and old Alcatel 4400 ( unix system ) in my opensuse 11.1 in order to recover some information from the disk.
Well i tried to many things but nothing yet , i will describe all the steps i followed :

1.- plug the hd through the usb box
2.- fdisk -l :
*Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xc24b77fb

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 2550 20480008+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 * 2941 9729 54532642+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 2551 2940 3132675 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdb: 6007 MB, 6007357440 bytes
15 heads, 63 sectors/track, 12416 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 945 * 512 = 483840 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x02d3db85

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb3 * 1 12411 5864197 63 GNU HURD or SysV
/dev/sdb4 12412 12416 2362+ 62 Unknown*

3.- modprobe ufs

to verify → **lsmod | grep ufs
**
*ufs 68128 0 *

4.- cd /media —> mkdir unix
5.- try to mount the disk :
mount -r -t ufs -o ufstype=old,ro /dev/sdb3 /media/unix

*mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb3,
missing codepage or helper program, or other error
In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
dmesg | tail or so
*

6.- check the dmesg

ufs_read_super: bad magic number

After this i can continue , i try different options in the ufstype , like 44bsd , ufs2 , etc …

When i type dmesg | grep sdb ,i get :

sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] 11733120 512-byte hardware sectors: (6.00 GB/5.59 GiB)
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 38 00 00
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] 11733120 512-byte hardware sectors: (6.00 GB/5.59 GiB)
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 38 00 00
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
sdb: sdb3 sdb4
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk

Could you help me with this situation ?
Thank you in advance

Simply stated, the mount tells you that /dev/sdb3 can not be interpreted as an ufs file system. Are you very sure it is one and that it is not damaged?

Thanks for the reply … well i am not really sure about the filesystem … i think that it is ufs bc of the GNU HURD sysv.
I tried with two different hard disk and both of them have the same problem and both of them work well in the Alcatel system.

Hi
Try mounting as fs type sysv instead. I’m trying to remember if we were
ever successful in recovering data from (I’m guessing it’s an IBM one?)
a drive off a CPU board (I’m an ex Alcatel employee) when we rolled
them out. Is there a local Alcatel office that can help you?


Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (x86_64) Kernel 2.6.27.37-0.1-default
up 3 days 4:05, 3 users, load average: 0.04, 0.10, 0.08
GPU GeForce 8600 GTS Silent - CUDA Driver Version: 190.18

Thank you Malcomlewis … well i tried :

mount -t sysv /dev/sdb3 /media/unix

and i got at the dmesg message :

VFS: unable to find oldfs superblock on device sdb3

Hmm, is the 4400 the OmniPCX? This thread I found from a search suggests that the OS is an old Mandrake Linux version and the filesystem is ext2. Don’t know why it didn’t show up as ext2 on fdisk though.

Alcatel Unleashed • View topic - how to load software using fresh hard disk in enterprise .

Normally the Unix partition is divided into slices, the Unix equivalent of partitions. What you can mount under Linux are these slices, as far as the Linux kernel is able to read the Unix disklabel and create the devices. These devices are named after the last logical DOS partition (called “DOS” because it uses the DOS partition scheme). The primary partition containing Unix is never mountable and gives an error when you try to mount it. I don’t know the Unix OS you’re trying to read, but that’s how it works for BSD, Solaris ans SCO, the ones I happened to mount under Linux. To be able to read it, the Linux kernel has to be compiled with support for the corresponding disklabel.

Thank you ken_yap , i tried mounting the disk as a ext2 but i got the message :
*VFS: Can’t find an ext2 filesystem on dev sdb3 *

Please_try_again how can i know the disklabel of the disk ? , and thank you for your reply

“disklabel” is the term used for “partition table” on Unix. It is located in the first sector of the primary Unix partition and includes the partition geometry (offset and size of the slices).


    1.799171] sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] 976773168 512-byte logical blocks: (500 GB/465 GiB)
    1.799215] sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
    1.799218] sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
    1.799235] sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
    1.799320]  sdb: sdb1 sdb2 sdb3 sdb4 < sdb5 sdb6 sdb7 sdb8 sdb9 sdb10 sdb11 >
    1.914999]  sdb2: <bsd: sdb12 sdb13 sdb14 sdb15 sdb16 sdb17 >
    1.933328]  sdb3: <bsd: sdb18 sdb19 sdb20 sdb21 sdb22 sdb23 >

In this example of my dmesg, sdb1 is a primary DOS partition, sdb2 and sdb3 are Unix partitions, sdb4 is the extended partition, sdb5 to sdb11 are logical DOS partitions (formated with different Linux filesystems). All the other partitions from sdb12 to sdb23 are Unix slices. These are the partitions I will mount under Linux and never sdb2 or sdb3. Trying to mount those partitions will give an error like the ones you get.

If you don’t see more partitions in dmesg, like in my example, after sdb2 and sdb3, the Linux kernel cannot read the disklabel (= the geometry) of your primary Unix. In this case, you won’t be able to mount anything.

This applies to BSD ans Solaris. Again, I don’t know your Unix. I’m just assuming that if it’s a Unix, whether it is System V or BSD based, it would behave like a Unix and be organized in slices. But I cannot be sure, not knowing at all the operating you’re trying to read.

Linux kernels used to have support for SYSV disklabels. The question would be: does the openSUSE kernel do by default and is your disklabel a SYSV (or something else). It’s obviously not a BSD one.

Have you tried asking in the Alcatel forums?

fdisk knows nothing about the fs type. It only knows about the partition type (the well known hex 82 and 83 we often see), but does not look into the partition itself to check what is realy there.

These partition types may give an indication of what the partition is used for, but it not very hard, nor is there a centraly administered standard list of the values. E.g. the 83 type is used forr all sorts of Linux fs types, be it Reiser, ext, or older types. (Nice test would be to let fdisk change a partition type of an existing ext3 partition from 83 to c (W95 FAT32 (LBA)) and re-mount it.)

BTW, please_try_again’s explanation souunds very plausible.

Did you try?

mount -t auto /dev/sdb3 /media/unix

Sorry, I didn’t pay attention to your fdisk -l output. I just noticed that your sdb3 partition id is 63. That’s a sysv filesystem, as used in SCO and other Unix. The filesystem used in the slices would be sysv and not ufs. You should find out which Unix other than SCO use the partition id 63 and if the Linux kernel has support for your Unix disklabel (and if not, if you can add it and recompile the kernel). Disklabel supports should normally be compiled into the kernel (= not as a module).

You’re right, I forgot that all the Linux filesystems are 83. Let me rephrase: I don’t know why it didn’t show up as a Linux filesystem if it was ext2. And the answer is probably because it isn’t. :frowning: I guess there are several versions of this device out there. As I said, you might want to try an Alcatel forum.

Did you try?
Code:

mount -t auto /dev/sdb3 /media/unix

Yes i did , but i got : mount: you must specify the filesystem type

I am going to post the problem in the alcatel forum , and see if somebody has ever done that.

I will come back to post the replies … by the way : thank you to everybody for your time and for making possible this nice community.

Well , sorry about the delay but i was kind of busy …
I post the topic in the alcatel forum and i got something interesting :

Looks like this old HD is formatted under Chorus OS (4400 Release <=5.0).
It is possible to restore some data only using this HD with CPU board in PBX rack and “bootnet” application.

So i guess i just can use the alcatel hardware to mount that unit …