My system hard drive is assigned with the device file /dev/sda and where the root partition is on /dev/sda1. However when the system is mounted on boot it has been mounted on /dev/sdb1 and not /dev/sda1.
The file/device /dev/sdb does not exist. This is causing problem with my external USB hard drives. When I mount one of my external drives it is assigned the device file /dev/sdb and when trying to mount this drive I get the following error message:
mount: according to mtab, /dev/sdb1 is already mounted on /
mount failed.
How do I correct this mount issue. I need to have the system drive to mount on /dev/sda1 where it belongs. How it could mount on /dev/sdb1 which does not exist I can not understand.
Post the output from a su terminal:
fdisk -l
and
cat /etc/fstab
~> fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 150.0 GB, 150039945216 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 18241 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00026bdc
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 17495 140528556 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 17496 18241 5992245 82 Linux swap / Solaris
~> cat /etc/fstab
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD1500HLFS-01G6U0_WD-WXLY08136254-part2 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/sdb1 / ext3 acl,user_xattr 1 1
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs noauto 0 0
debugfs /sys/kernel/debug debugfs noauto 0 0
usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs noauto 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts mode=0620,gid=5 0 0
I can’t see how that sdb entry made it into /etc/fstab
except manually, because suse now only mounts as you see above it by-id
edit out the sdb line with a #
so it will look like this
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD1500HLFS-01G6U0_WD-WXLY08136254-part2 swap swap defaults 0 0
dev/sda1 / ext3 acl,user_xattr 1 1
#/dev/sdb1 / ext3 acl,user_xattr 1 1
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs noauto 0 0
debugfs /sys/kernel/debug debugfs noauto 0 0
usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs noauto 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts mode=0620,gid=5 0 0
It’s handy if you have a live cd about in case this all goes wrong and we need to edit fstab again. I’m concerned about using this method of mount and can’t understand how it got there in the first place.
FSTAB - Editing Manually - openSUSE Forums
I do not have a Live-CD, and I do not have an optical drive. Is there any safe way to correct this?
I can try edit /etc/fstab and see. If it gets me into trouble I just have to reinstall…(my system is brand new so it will not cost my any data, just an inconvenience).
I edited the file /etc/fstab as you suggested and it worked fine.
Can you make a bootable usb pendrive?
With this:
UNetbootin - Homepage and Downloads
I have knoppix on one and it’s really quick and easy to use.
Take you time and read up on it.
Yikes. That’s was brave. You did reboot did you??
Yes I rebooted and it worked fine and the system drive are now mounted where it belongs.
Great. I’m please that worked for you;)
The external drive was connected during installation, and was interpreted to be a persistent device (which it often is, although not in this case).