Unable to mount hard drives after kernel update

[mtonkinson]

I updated to the latest kernel and it has worked well and I also upgraded to the new KDE desktop. The only problem is after upgrading the kernel, I started having problems mounting my secondary SATA hard drive and an external USB drive. In both cases I get the error message "/dev/... already mounted or /media/... busy." I have checked log files and both drives have been detected and mounted. When I go into dolphin, it gives the same already mounted or busy message but also has the message org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.Unknownfailure. the external usb drive is listed when I enter the command lsusb and when I type mount only the partitions from the primary hard drive are shown. The only thing I can think of that may be causing these problems is udev. At one time, my bootup would hang but that was fixed in another kernel upgrade. I have looked all over the internet but cannot seem to find any information on what to try, just a lot of other people from other distros having this problem and being able to fix it by removing a library. Anybody have ideas on what could be wrong and what I can try?

[wedgetail]

Please post the results, not the verbal description of what you have found in the logs.  This may also tell if you are comfortable in konsole
Seems you have done good work, but it is too easy to miss something in verbal description.
You will attract people who really knows too.    
Just the relevant snippets, not hole logs.  

[mtonkinson]

Okay, I'll try my best. Here are some snippets.

Here's what happens when I try to mount either the hard drive sdb1 or the usb external drive sdc1

[root@localhost ~]# mount /dev/sdc1
mount: can't find /dev/sdc1 in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab
[root@localhost ~]# mount /dev/sdb1
mount: /dev/sdb1 already mounted or /mnt/win_e busy

I unplugged sdc1 while booting which caused the different message I assume. Before I was getting message /dev/sdc1 already mounted or /media/Elements busy

when typing lsusb, I get the following results:
[root@localhost ~]# lsusb
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 1058:1003 Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 04b8:0118 Seiko Epson Corp. Perfection 4180 (GF-F600)
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 059b:0041 Iomega Corp.
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 03f0:3e02 Hewlett-Packard PhotoSmart 7550
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

when typing mount I get
[root@localhost ~]# mount
/dev/sda7 on / type ext3 (rw)
none on /proc type proc (rw)
none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,mode=0620)
none on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw)
/dev/sda6 on /home type ext3 (rw)
none on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw)
sunrpc on /var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs type rpc_pipefs (rw)
nfsd on /proc/fs/nfsd type nfsd (rw)
none on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
/dev/sr2 on /media/TBI Backup Disc type iso9660 (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,uid=0,utf8)

Is there any other output needed? I'm kind of a newbie to linux so I am not familiar with all the commands.

[wedgetail]

Much better, even I a linux fledgling can pick something interesting, as well I am instantly interested

In console do df an post the result between code marks, this is # icon above then you get something like this

Code: [Select]

[gert@PCLOS2009 ~]$ df
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda11             12G  5.4G  6.5G  46% /
/dev/hdb1             7.4G  3.5G  3.5G  50% /media/hdb1
/dev/hdb3              15G  2.6G   12G  18% /media/hdb3
/dev/sda1              98G   11G   88G  11% /media/sda1
/dev/sda2              31G   66M   31G   1% /media/sda2
/dev/sda5             172G   70M  172G   1% /media/sda5
/dev/sda7             7.7G  2.2G  5.2G  30% /media/sda7
/dev/sda9              28G  176M   27G   1% /media/sda9
none                 1014M     0 1014M   0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda12             23G  1.2G   21G   6% /home
[gert@PCLOS2009 ~]$

Placing konsole output in code marks instantly alerts that it may come from console, and likely you have not made a typo.
I will do this to your mounting effort:

Code: [Select]

[root@localhost ~]# mount /dev/sdc1
mount: can't find /dev/sdc1 in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab
[root@localhost ~]# mount /dev/sdb1
mount: /dev/sdb1 already mounted or /mnt/win_e busy
I would like to see the result of your df then I can explain better next step.

Since /dev/sdc1 has not been allocated a mountpoint in your fstab you get that message. The second mount in above should reveal itself with the df too

I have put your "mount" into code marks, and you have taught me something. Very useful but I need to study that one. It is a bit like the df but not as easy to interpret for me.

Code: [Select]

[root@localhost ~]# mount
/dev/sda7 on / type ext3 (rw)
none on /proc type proc (rw)
none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,mode=0620)
none on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw)
/dev/sda6 on /home type ext3 (rw)
none on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw)
sunrpc on /var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs type rpc_pipefs (rw)
nfsd on /proc/fs/nfsd type nfsd (rw)
none on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
/dev/sr2 on /media/TBI Backup Disc type iso9660 (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,uid=0,utf8)
I will leave the rest as I am way past midnight but somebody else may contribute as well

[mtonkinson]

Here's the results of the df command:

Code: [Select]

[root@localhost ~]# df
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda7              26G  5.4G   19G  23% /
/dev/sda6              25G  757M   25G   3% /home

I do have a question about udev. From my understanding udev is replacing the original linux /etc/fstab and /etc/mtab files. Is this true? I did notice that my fstab file has everything commented out with a # sign including an entry for sdb, my secondary hard drive. Maybe I'll try commenting out the entries and see what happens. but my sda drive has a few partitions as you can see. It has BootItNG in a separate partition to help boot between Windows XP and PCLinuxOS as well as the PCLinuxOS partitions and a NTFS partition for XP. Both the secondary hard drive and external hard drive are formatted in FAT32 to make it easier to use these drives to access files in both Linux and Windows XP.

[muungwana]

what does the following command give you?

cat /etc/fstab

[wedgetail]

mtonkinson

This tells me you have a system that mounts two partitions when starting but that is not what may be available.

Now do in konsole fdisk -l (that is lower capital l as in London) post the result in code brackets this will show us what is really in your system

I don't know what udev is, so you are teaching me. Post your fstab too as it bothers me that you say fstab entries are commented out. there is sometimes a comment line for each entry as explanation.

Here is part of mine:

Code: [Select]

# hdb1=grub(hd1,0) fstab created by Livecd-install and messed by Gert
# this is reworked Thursday 21 May 2009 to include the new 2009.1 install
# what about Puppy Linux?

# Don't know what these do but generally they show up when looking in forum, find out later
        none    /proc           proc    defaults        0 0
        none    /dev/pts        devpts  mode=0620       0 0
        none    /proc/bus/usb   usbfs   defaults        0 0

# fd: H1440, the floppy disk
        /dev/fd0        /mnt/floppy     auto    user,exec,rw,noauto     0 0

# the first hard drive, has Windows 2000 installed originally and then linux partitions added later
        /dev/hda1       /media/win_c    vfat    user,exec,rw,noauto,umask=000    0 0
        /dev/hda2       /media/hda2     vfat    user,exec,rw,noauto,umask=000    0 0

#       /dev/hda3  the extended partition/container and notice that I still have not got it about hda4 sitting in the wings?
# now the content of the extended partition
#
        /dev/hda5       /media/win_d    vfat    user,exec,rw,noauto,umask=000    0 0
        /dev/hda6       /media/hda6     vfat    user,exec,rw,noauto,umask=000    0 0
        /dev/hda7       /media/win_e    vfat    user,exec,rw,noauto,umask=000    0 0

You did not say anything about your windows systems in your initial post   

[mtonkinson]

here's the output from fdisk -l:

Code: [Select]

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/sdb1           24321       24321        8032+  df  BootIt
/dev/sdb2               1       24320   195350368+   c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)

Partition table entries are not in disk order

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

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-2p1           24321       24321        8032+  df  BootIt
/dev/dm-2p2               1       24320   195350368+   c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)

Partition table entries are not in disk order

here's my fstab file:

Code: [Select]

## fstab created by Livecd-install

none    /proc   proc    defaults        0 0
none    /dev/pts        devpts  mode=0620       0 0
none    /proc/bus/usb   usbfs   defaults        0 0

# fd: H1440
/dev/fd0        /mnt/floppy     auto    user,exec,rw,noauto     0 0

# /dev/sda1, size=409593177, type=7: NTFS (primary)
/dev/sda1       /mnt/win_c      ntfs    user,exec,ro,noauto,nls=utf8,umask=002
0 0

# /dev/sda2, size=16002, type=223:  (primary)
/dev/sda2       /mnt/win_d      vfat    user,exec,rw,noauto,iocharset=utf8,umask
=002    0 0

# /dev/sda5, size=8177022, type=130: Linux swap (extended)
/dev/sda5 swap swap defaults 0 0

# /dev/sda6, size=52853787, type=131: Journalised FS: ext3 (extended)
/dev/sda6 /home ext3 defaults 1 2

# /dev/sda7, size=53287542, type=131: Journalised FS: ext3 (extended)
/dev/sda7 / ext3 defaults 1 1

# /dev/sdb1, size=1250258562, type=12: Win98 FAT32, LBA-mapped (primary)
/dev/sdb1       /mnt/win_e      vfat    user,exec,rw,noauto,iocharset=utf8,umask
=002    0 0

# cdrom: PLEXTOR DVDR   PX-712A
#       /dev/sr0        /mnt/cdrom      auto    user,exec,ro,noauto     0 0

# cdrom: ASUS DRW-2014L1T
#       /dev/sr1        /mnt/cdrom2     auto    user,exec,ro,noauto     0 0

# cdrom: 00419711F34FFF60
#       /dev/sr2        /mnt/cdrom3     auto    user,exec,ro,noauto     0 0

from what it looks like, the CD-ROMS are the only drives being commented out and the external USB hard drive and CD-ROMS are probably mounted by another process such as udev since they are removable media devices. I did forget to mention that I have windows on my system . One of the things that interested me in linux was that it can run on a lot of machines that cannot run the latest release of Windows. It seems every time a new version of Windows comes out, you need to buy twice as much memory and a lot of hardware will not work with the new release.

[muungwana]

Okay, I'll try my best. Here are some snippets.

Here's what happens when I try to mount either the hard drive sdb1 or the usb external drive sdc1

[root@localhost ~]# mount /dev/sdc1
mount: can't find /dev/sdc1 in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab
[root@localhost ~]# mount /dev/sdb1
mount: /dev/sdb1 already mounted or /mnt/win_e busy

I unplugged sdc1 while booting which caused the different message I assume. Before I was getting message /dev/sdc1 already mounted or /media/Elements busy

going with this ..

your fstab does not have sdc1 so you will have to specify both the device not and the mount point. YOu dont have to specify both if you have an entry in fstab because the other half will be read from the file ..

if you have  a folder with a full path of "/mnt/sdc1", the following will work

mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt/sdc1

you shouldnt have removable devices in fstab to allow HAL to handle them

you get the other error with sdb1 probably because you already mounted it

[wedgetail]

Further to what muungwana wrote.

I am a bit concerned about the "Partition table entries are not in disk order" may not be significant but I think some investigation in order, bit beyond me at present.  If we holler a bit perhaps old-polack may look in.

I will see if I can find a reference to one of his posts that may be of help too. About mounting disks etc you could look in this thread too, this gets very specific about some details.

You can scan through here in the mean time, heavy going perhaps but some nice details:
http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,64876.0.html

[Bald Brick]

Further to what muungwana wrote.

I am a bit concerned about the "Partition table entries are not in disk order" may not be significant but I think some investigation in order, bit beyond me at present.  If we holler a bit perhaps old-polack may look in.

Here O-P explains how to fix the disk order:
http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,60405.msg486123.html#msg486123.

Please read all of his post: you may have to edit /etc/fstab and other files too. (In your case /dev/sda1 would become /dev/sda2 and /dev/sda2 would become /dev/sda1. Also /dev/sdb1 would become /dev/sdb2, /dev/sdb2 would become /dev/sdb1 -- and so on.)

Also note that it usually doesn't matter if the partition table entries aren't in disk order, except that if you have many disks with many partitions it can become confusing over time and may increase the chance of your borking your system.


Edit:
And you should perhaps tell us why you have a BootIt filesystem on sdb1.

[wedgetail]

Blackbird has given you a great link, but it is time to tell us how comfortable you feel in konsole. I get the impression you are quite comfortable here.
Would be very handy if you have second pc you can practice on, a bit less nerve racking than when you are at risk loosing valuable data. Did you notice blackbird's signature   if you are one of those with similar inclinations you guaranteed will have fun.

Now I think you have figured out that if you try to mount a device that is already mounted you get a message saying this is the case and gives you the mount point directory (file place holder, in linux an item like a hard drive is just a file, that is a bit hard to swallow  )

If you have the time my guess is that you will 'easily' be able to fix your system to running stage, only a little bit in the fdisk -l that have me concerned. I think it is recommended you spend more time and straighten out the drives, which will include following.

It has BootItNG in a separate partition to help boot between Windows XP and PCLinuxOS as well as the PCLinuxOS partitions and a NTFS partition for XP. Both the secondary hard drive and external hard drive are formatted in FAT32 to make it easier to use these drives to access files in both Linux and Windows XP.

BootItNG, is your boot manager I assume, (looks like a hefty piece of software) and GRUB is a boot manager, I think those two are having a stand off, this is probably where the first step to fix now may be.  Or do you have that part working well.  Could also ask which Boot Manager are you using, and which one do you insist on using? (I am asking almost the same as blackbird) GRUB can easily handle the job alone, but this may not leave you comfortable.

A bit of planning now will pay off. Go over again what you aim is and then think of path of implementation.

Will Linux be you main system in the future or is it to play second fiddle for experimenting.

[Bald Brick]

I do have a question about udev. From my understanding udev is replacing the original linux /etc/fstab and /etc/mtab files. Is this true?

No. It populates the /dev directory. Before udev the device nodes in the /dev directory were a large static set of files; nowadays udev creates just the necessary ones. But as far as I know it doesn't care where a device is mounted.

HAL, on the other hand, can take over some tasks that used to be done by /etc/fstab (if you let it).

[wedgetail]

Oh boy, I am sorry, I am leading this in the wrong direction. I did not pay enough attention to "the new kde" you are running KDE4 and mention of Dolphin I just thought sounds cute, but of course that is the file manager. (Konqueror in KDE3).

Am I correct that Dolphin did not show the two drives you mention?  Since I have no experience with KDE4 yet, I am hitting a wall.

When I go into dolphin, it gives the same already mounted or busy message but also has the message org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.Unknownfailure.

I am having trouble with understanding what you mean.  Any chance of a picture of the Dolphin view?  The UnknownFailure could refer to the RAID setup perhaps.

[mtonkinson]

Thanks for the help everyone.

Wedgeling: In Dolphin it does show the drives but if I click on them, I get the error message that it is already mounted. I did do a mount /dev/sdb2 /mnt/temp (where temp is a directory I created) and it successfully mounted at the command prompt and was also accessable by Dolphin. My USB external drive still gives the same error message in Dolphin. I attached a screenshot. I am now getting a different error when I attempt to mount my external at the command line using mount /dev/sdc2 /mnt/temp2 (where temp2 is a directory I created).

Code: [Select]

[root@localhost mnt]# mount /dev/sdc2 /mnt/temp2
mount: you must specify the filesystem type

One thing that I don't understand is that both drives sdb and sdc start at 2 (sdb2, sdc2). the drive sda does start with sda1. I did remove a partition in drive sdb last night but it still refers to sdb2 and it doesn't mount at boot so I have to use the mount command above. The removable drive has always been only 1 partition but starts at sdc2. Is this normal? I think you asked if I intend to keep windows. For now I will probably keep windows but Linux works a lot better and I don't have to make a bunch of upgrades to video cards and memory almost every time a new version of windows comes out. Also with linux, I don't have to be hassled with the Genuine Advantage system that sometimes can decide that you have an invalid copy of windows and require you to call Microsoft to re-activate your product even though it isn't a pirated copy of windows. 

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