Why can't I read/write to my 2nd Harddrive

[Old-Polack]

Ok friends,

I had a go and edited my fstab and rebooted and my system now sees my 2nd harddrive.

I didn't use the UUID method because after mounting it using the mount command then doing a "blkid" in the konsole it gave this output:

[root@localhost philw]# blkid
/dev/hda1: UUID="B4B4766DB47631CA" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/hda5: UUID="665ee4f8-f936-49e2-b6b6-f7127156dcde" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/hda6: TYPE="swap" UUID="170d705e-704d-409b-9fd9-bedb8be64084"
/dev/hda7: UUID="6b68d407-97e0-4911-a322-46e611f658a8" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/hdd1: UUID="665ee4f8-f936-49e2-b6b6-f7127156dcde" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"

Now i'm still learning but even I think it's strange that two devices should have the same UUID and this could confuse the system on booting. So I used "/dev/hdd1" as the identity which i'd read would also work.

The 2nd drive (hdd1) is formatted ext3 and had a copy of my original / partition on it.  So am I right in thinking this is why it has cloned the UUID as well ?.  I can't remember how I cloned it now but I think it was from a LiveCD.

In the interests of furthering my knowledge is anyone able to advise what has happened ?. If I had used the stated UUID would it have borked my system ?.

You did a bit for bit clone of the entire filesystem, which contains the UUID number, so now have two partitions with the same number. Had you created the partition, formatted it, then copied the data only, you'd not have this situation, but two unique UUID numbers.

You can use the tune2fs app to delete the present UUID of the clone drive, and create a new proper UUID.

From man tune2fs:

Code:

-U UUID
              Set  the universally unique identifier (UUID) of the filesystem to UUID.  The format of the UUID is a series of
              hex digits separated by hyphens, like this: "c1b9d5a2-f162-11cf-9ece-0020afc76f16".   The  UUID  parameter  may
              also be one of the following:

                   clear  clear the filesystem UUID

                   random generate a new randomly-generated UUID

                   time   generate a new time-based UUID

              The  UUID  may  be  used  by mount(8), fsck(8), and /etc/fstab(5) (and possibly others) by specifying UUID=uuid
              instead of a block special device name like /dev/hda1.

While you're at it, you could also give the partition a unique label, of up to 16 characters, and use that in the same manner as a UUID, but easier to understand and type than a long number.

[caerhays]

Hi old polack,

Sorry but you lost me there.
I don't understand exactly what to do but I would like to change the UUID for my /dev/hdd1 partition.

So do I :

In konsole login as root
then
"tune2fs -U random /dev/hdd1"     (giving the partition a random number)

[Old-Polack]

Hi old polack,

Sorry but you lost me there.
I don't understand exactly what to do but I would like to change the UUID for my /dev/hdd1 partition.

So do I :

In konsole login as root
then
"tune2fs -U random /dev/hdd1"     (giving the partition a random number)

I would think a two step approach better.

tune2fs -U clear /dev/hdd1

tune2fs -U random /dev/hdd1

If a label is also desired;

tune2fs -U random -L <label name> /dev/hdd1

[caerhays]

Old-Polack,

Great........job done, or as we say here in Cornwall......."properjob".

Thanks for your help in moving my knowledge of Linux a little further.
I'll mark this topic solved now.

[Old-Polack]

Old-Polack,

Great........job done, or as we say here in Cornwall......."properjob".

Thanks for your help in moving my knowledge of Linux a little further.
I'll mark this topic solved now.

Only after the problem is solved, I would recommend you install the man pages through Synaptic. (We have a rule about not telling someone to RTFM when they need help) 

Some are rather cryptic, and they sure don't read like a novel, but once you get used to their general form, they do contain a lot of useful information on how to do things that are, at best, difficult at times with the GUI applications that are front ends to the command line apps. Going directly to the command line, and entering an application name with a couple of simple arguments can be so much faster than hunting through menus, with dozens of mouse clicks, looking for that one mouse click that does the needed job.

[caerhays]

Hi Old-Polack,

Issue all solved and new UUID and Label given to drive.

I didn't know the Manual was available from Synaptic !.  I haven't taken anything from the repositories since they were frozen 'cos I didn't want to bork my system. Would it be ok to get the manual now or should I wait until i've moved to PCLOS2010 Final ?.

[Old-Polack]

Hi Old-Polack,

Issue all solved and new UUID and Label given to drive.

I didn't know the Manual was available from Synaptic !.  I haven't taken anything from the repositories since they were frozen 'cos I didn't want to bork my system. Would it be ok to get the manual now or should I wait until i've moved to PCLOS2010 Final ?.

I d/l-install the man pages as the first thing I do after a new installation. When I installed the betas, the man pages for the installed apps were removed to make space on the disk, so I reinstalled everything through Synaptic, just to get those man pages restored. There is also a separate man-pages package that includes pages for all the basic Linux commands, which I install. Each application usually has it's own man page that is part of the package, that gets added to the collection when the app is installed, so you only have the man pages for the apps you use, rather than a bunch of space taken up by pages for apps you don't use. All in all, a good system.

I'll be keeping my current installation as well as the 2010 Final, because there is still functionality missing from KDE4 that is present in KDE3.5, and it's things I use. You may want to do the same, until you're sure that 2010 has everything working that you need. Just a thought. You should have a number of man pages already, from the apps you've installed, so adding the man-pages package shouldn't hurt anything, just fill in some blanks.