Unable to mount hard drives after kernel update

[wedgetail]

Looking good: /dev/sdb2 /mnt/temp success

The removable drive has always been only 1 partition but starts at sdc2. Is this normal?

You do not have an /dev/sdc2 according to the fdisk -l previous, you must have changed something since then.  Post a new fdisk -l in code tags.


I am not sure about the partition order on a drive being being opposite to the increasing cylinder ranges allocated. I would correct it, but later.

First new fisk -l

[mtonkinson]

I did a minor change since when I last posted the results of fdisk -l. Blackbird mentioned how my drive sdb had 2 entries including a boot partition with boot IT NG on it. It use to be a boot disk and when I installed the other hard drive, I never got around to removing the Boot IT NG from it so I figured this would be a good time to repartition the drive and remove the Boot IT NG partition. This appears to have fixed the issue of not being able to mount the sdb drive. Now both sda, and sdb are mounted when I boot but I'm still unable to get sdc (the external USB drive) to mount.

Here's the latest fdisk-l output:

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[root@localhost dev]# fdisk -l                                             

Disk /dev/sda: 640.1 GB, 640135028736 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 77825 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x1bc30dc0                     

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               2       25497   204796588+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2               1           1        8001   df  BootIt   
/dev/sda3   *       25498       32613    57159270    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5           25498       26006     4088511   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6           26007       29296    26426893+  83  Linux               
/dev/sda7   *       29297       32613    26643771   83  Linux               

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdb: 200.0 GB, 200049647616 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24321 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x69205244                     

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb2               1       24321   195358401    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)

Disk /dev/sdc: 640.1 GB, 640135028736 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 77825 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xacdd9b22

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1               1       77825   625129281    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)

Disk /dev/dm-0: 640.1 GB, 640135028736 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 77825 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xacdd9b22

     Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/dm-0p1               1       77825   625129281    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)

Disk /dev/dm-1: 640.1 GB, 640132383744 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 77824 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x73696420

This doesn't look like a partition table
Probably you selected the wrong device.

     Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/dm-1p1   ?      119512      153402   272218546+  20  Unknown
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/dm-1p2   ?       82801      116350   269488144   6b  Unknown
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/dm-1p3   ?       33551      120595   699181456   53  OnTrack DM6 Aux3
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/dm-1p4   *       86812       86813       10668+  49  Unknown
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.

Partition table entries are not in disk order

I also was looking at a book I had on linux and came across the fsck command and ran it on my usb drive sdc and got the following results:

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[root@localhost dev]# fsck -t vfat /dev/sdc1
fsck from util-linux-ng 2.16
dosfsck 3.0.4, 21 Jul 2009, FAT32, LFN
There are differences between boot sector and its backup.
Differences: (offset:original/backup)
  65:01/00, 67:2b/a4, 68:ed/0d, 69:44/07, 70:59/69
1) Copy original to backup
2) Copy backup to original
3) No action

I answered with option 3 (No action) since I wasn't sure what to do. I think I should pick option 1 (Copy original to backup) since it sounds like the backup isn't the same and this may be why sdc doesn't mount since it is looking at an outdated copy. If I pick option 2, I may lose data on my usb hard drive. Would picking option 1 be the right option?

[wedgetail]

Ok, wehave established you have no /sdc2

the command line using mount /dev/sdc2 /mnt/temp2 (where temp2 is a directory I created).

this is why this fails.  It should be sdc1 , try it. Then we can look at if it needs to go into fstab.

I am not clear of what you mean it will not mount ?? Do you mean automount when you start, or is there still an error message in Dolphin when you try to mount it here?  

Your fsck logic seems wrong to me.  If the original (the active one, which you think may be wrong)  is sent to backup you destroy the chance that the backup is the right one?  

In a forum session, if you try something between posts, it is a good idea to report what you did and the results as it may well influence coming answers. Also in this case, this would show us you did take notice of Blackbirds suggestion. Further did you read all of old-polack's entry about the fdisk powerful abilities?    

[mtonkinson]

I accidentally did try fsck again on the drive and answered with one. I ended up back to where I started with sdb and sdc not mounting. I did try mounting sdc1 before running fsck again:

Code: [Select]

[root@localhost /]# mount /dev/sdc1
mount: can't find /dev/sdc1 in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab

I did find something interesting in my fdisk -l. There are drive mappings /dev/dm-0, /dev/dm-1, and /dev/dm-2. You can see them in my last post. In addition there are entries for what to be partitions such as /dev/dm-0p1. I noticed an error message in fdisk -l which is below:

Code: [Select]

Disk /dev/dm-1: 640.1 GB, 640132383744 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 77824 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x73696420

This doesn't look like a partition table
Probably you selected the wrong device.

     Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/dm-1p1   ?      119512      153402   272218546+  20  Unknown
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/dm-1p2   ?       82801      116350   269488144   6b  Unknown
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/dm-1p3   ?       33551      120595   699181456   53  OnTrack DM6 Aux3
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/dm-1p4   *       86812       86813       10668+  49  Unknown
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.

The part that says "This doesn't look like a partition table" caught my eye.

I attempted to mount dm-1 and when it successfully mounted, I went to the directory /mnt/temp:

Code: [Select]

[root@localhost /]# cd/mnt
-bash: cd/mnt: No such file or directory
[root@localhost /]# cd /mnt
[root@localhost mnt]# cd temp

I did an ls -al and determined that it was my external USB hard drive. If unmount /dev/dm-1 and attempt to mount /dev/dm-0:

Code: [Select]

mount /dev/dm-0 /mnt/temp
mount: you must specify the filesystem type
I get a Must specify filesystem type. Mounting /dev/dm-2 gives me:

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mount /dev/dm-2 /mnt/temp
mount: you must specify the filesystem type
when I use the df command I get:

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df
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda7              26G  5.5G   19G  23% /
/dev/sda6              25G  760M   25G   3% /home

I think the problem may be the mapping. Something is going wrong when my drives are being mapped. Is there a way to find out what drives are mapped where or is there a log that I can view of any mapping errors? I'm assuming /dev/dm-0 and /dev/dm-2 are the mappings of /dev/sda7 and /dev/sda6. Wait, Maybe these dm's are my drives. If you look at it, it seems to see 4 partitions in dm-1 even though it is my external USB drive. Perhaps, the drives are getting mixed up during boot. This is probably why I keep getting messages that the drives are already mounted when I try to mount /dev/sdb2 or /dev/sdc1.

[wedgetail]

Hmmm, where to now.

I had not mentioned the dm-1pn this appears to be a RAID setup. I was leaving that alone as I assumed this was working ok. I certainly did not expect your external drive to be associated with that, I did not like to bring the RAID up as I thought it would confuse. I do not know enough about RAID, to me this involves two hard drives working together in a fashion that allows extra security in case of physical breakdown of one.

Yes I was aware of the error messages around here.

Must admit that intrigued me you should be doing that, you must have some stuff you just don't want to loose. Best to ask following:
  
Are you aware of you may be running a RAID system? The way you have tried to mount those devices makes me think, perhaps you don't know.  

I am going to ask old-polack to see if he can straighten us out.  

Code: [Select]

Primary Har drive (assumption)  --> /dev/sda - 640GB Disk identifier: 0x1bc30dc0
Secondary SATA ----------> /dev/sdb - 200GB Disk identifier: 0x69205244
External USB ---------------------> /dev/sdc - 640GB Disk identifier: 0xacdd9b22

Disk /dev/dm-0: 640.1 GB, 640135028736 bytes  Disk identifier: 0xacdd9b22
Disk /dev/dm-1: 640.1 GB, 640132383744 bytes  Disk identifier: 0x73696420
Disk /dev/dm-2: 200.0 GB, 200049647616 bytes  Disk identifier: 0x6920524

Perhaps I should have done this long ago, you are right it does seem like your external hard drive may be involved in the RAID, thus you discovered the Extenral drive down in the /dm-1pn

In the mean time can you confirm you only have 3 physical drives involved?   

[mtonkinson]

I do have a motherboard (Asus P5AD2-E Premium) that supports RAID's but I don't have my drives set up in a RAID which can be tricky as I learned once when I installed a linux distro and couldn't boot afterwards and can't remember what I changed in BIOS to correct the problem. Both sda and sdb are SATA drives. I did some research and found a command that can be helpful. I was looking to see if I had dmraid installed which could possibly cause problems (according to some messages I read while google searching my error messages) but did find I had dmsetup installed (dmraid isn't installed) which can give info about my drives. I ran a dmsetup ls and got the following:

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[root@localhost ~]# dmsetup ls
1WD_6400AAK_External    (253, 0)
1WD_6400AAK_Externalp1  (253, 1)
SATA_WDC_WD2000JD-22WD-WCAL73024837     (253, 2)

So it looks like dmsetup is mapping my Western Digital 6400AAK which is my primary hard drive as drive 0, my primary hard drive partition 1 as device 1 (Don't know why External is part of the name or why partition 1 is being assigned a device), and my secondary hard drive (WDC_WD200JD) as device 2. Anybody have ideas what I can try next?

Thanks for all your help! 

[wedgetail]

My understanding is that many recent years Motherboards have RAID built in, whilst it would be nice to run this I have not been able to convince myself I need the complication. How to ensure this is cleaned out I am not sure.

I will suggest you try to uninstall dmsetup, the see what happens. fdisk -l should then be 'clean' just three entries.

Ooooh, you may have an extra problem. I have downloaded the manual and had a very very quick look and I am unable to convince myself that your system actually can be configured as non RAID. Attached pic seems to indicate to the not so knowledgeable it is a dedicated RAID system

Can you confirm? Anybody else?



[attachment deleted by admin]

[mtonkinson]

I think you are right that my motherboard has built in raid. I do have my BIOS "Configure SATA as" option set to Standard IDE with other options being AHCI and raid. I also have the on board IDE operation mode set to Enhanced Mode with AHCI and RAID being the other options but I think these settings are just virtual settings for compatability (hope I'm making sense) and technically my motherboard is running as a raid. I looked at dmsetup but am not so sure about removing it since a lot of modules including kernals, kde, and programs I use such as truecrypt must be removed according to Synaptic Package Manager. What would happen if I installed dmraid? I had a hard time setting up my new hard disk because the BIOS kept placing my old disk as the boot disk. I will have to take a look under the hood for the SATA connections of my SATA hard drives and CD-roms. My Motherboard has 4 SATA then some SATA-RAID connectors. I am using the 4 SATA connectors. Has anyone used an Asus P5AD2-E Premium motherboard and can tell me the correct BIOS settings (that will allow both windows xp and linux to run)? I at one time I had Win XP and another Linux Distro in a dual boot but I can't remember what happened but it suddenly wouldn't boot to linux or windows XP. I was thinking it was after installing the Linux but now, I am thinking that the dual-boot worked for a while after the installation then for some reason stopped working and I had to tinker with the BIOS settings and was able to get it working again (Don't remember what BIOS settings I changed). I has worked fine for the past 3 years. Of course I now have PCLinux installed since I liked it better.  My drives look kind of strange in BIOS. My primary and secondary ID Master and Slave settings have nothing detected. My third IDE primary has nothing detected but the slave setting has my boot hard drive, my fourth IDE primary has my ASUS cd-rom and fourth IDE slave has my secondary drive.

[wedgetail]

What on earth   well well and the system runs. I need to look in the manual. I can't make head or tails of this. (Don't worry I only know basic things)

Is Synaptic still running? Then I will ask you to install a diagnostic program that can print a report on your PC to attach to post.
In Synaptic search on hardinfo a small file takes about 1 minute to download and you are ready. (Using this is because it is the only one I know that can generate a report, unfortunately for attachment it needs to be txt, the html save is much nicer to read but not allowed option for attachment)

Located in the menu under System -> Configuration -> Hardware > Hardware Information

Generate a report, but only for 3 of the 4 sections, remove tick for Benchmarks
Save report as *.txt and attach to post I will look through and see what I can make of this.

Is it a disaster if your system become totally useless? Have you got a backup of what is needed to be preserved.

Please if you can add some line breaks, in longer descriptions, this easier on the eyes and brain. 

[mtonkinson]

Yes my system is still running. When I saw the confirmation message from Synaptic and saw kernel modules on the list, I decided to cancel the removal of dmsetup. I do have backups in the event my system becomes useless. enclosed is the hardinfo report. I did notice my CPU is listed twice in the report but also checked windows and it is also listed twice in Windows when it isn't a dual-core processor.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[wedgetail]

Good move stopping at before removing dmsetup. I will go through and see what I can make of it.   

[wedgetail]

I did not get if you were running RAID or not of the report but I have studied the Manual for the board, so we approach it differently.

I am impressed with this boards capabilities as far as connecting drives, hope you will have lots of enjoyment out of it.
I have concentrated on the IDE / SATA options and need you to identify.

Reading from the manual Page 2-25  approximately it shows (Have you got the manual?):

IDE standard old fashioned 40 pin connectors
PRI_IDE1
PRI_RAID1
SEC_RAID1

Below SATA connectors are by BIOS default set to give 4 IDE connections

SATA1
SATA2
SATA3
SATA4

Also those 4 below left unused I hope

SATA_RAID1
SATA_RAID2
SATA_RAID3
SATA_RAID4

I have attached picture of the MoBo (Motherboard) layout

Carefully study this and tell exactly where your  IDE drive devices are connected, using above descriptors. The descriptors should show exactly on the board as written above.



[attachment deleted by admin]

[mtonkinson]

My hard drives and CD-ROM drives are connected in the following configuration:

SATA1 - Plextor CD-ROM
SATA2 - Asus CD-ROM
SATA3 - my secondary hard drive
SATA4 - My boot hard drive.

I know, kind of a strange configuration but I had troubles getting BIOS to accept my boot drive as the primary hard drive. I kept trying to connect my primary hard drive in either SATA1 or SATA2 and the secondary in SATA3 or SATA4 but BIOS would keep seeing my secondary hard drive as the primary or only one of the hard drives would be seen by BIOS.

[wedgetail]

You could say yes, not logical but it is fine for the time being.
With only those two hard drives connected, can you post fdisk -l in code tags

Where is your USB drive connected when attached, referenced to the Mobo layout

I would like to profile your pc slightly different, from Synaptic install another small program called lshw you will see two but not the GUI version. Install your external USB as well so it gets in the profile output too:

Code: [Select]

[root@PCLOS2009 gert]# lshw > marc4.txt

Attach this to your next post

To explain what I am trying to do.  I think you are operating the SATA bundle in IDE mode which is good and preferable. What I don't understand is if you really need drive mapping you may do.  I am hoping that the lshw may answer this question.

[mtonkinson]

Sorry it took so long for me to respond. Here is the output from fdisk -l without the external hard drive attached:

Code: [Select]

[root@localhost /]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 640.1 GB, 640135028736 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 77825 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x1bc30dc0

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               2       25497   204796588+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2               1           1        8001   df  BootIt
/dev/sda3   *       25498       32613    57159270    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5           25498       26006     4088511   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6           26007       29296    26426893+  83  Linux
/dev/sda7   *       29297       32613    26643771   83  Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdb: 200.0 GB, 200049647616 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24321 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x69205244

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb2               1       24321   195358401    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)

Disk /dev/dm-2: 200.0 GB, 200049647616 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24321 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x69205244

     Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/dm-2p2               1       24321   195358401    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)
[root@localhost /]#

Enclosed is the output from lshw but I ran lshw with my external hard drive attached.

[attachment deleted by admin]