Tiny Core Linux

Tiny Core Base => TCB Q&A Forum => Topic started by: docsulo on October 18, 2010, 04:17:25 PM

Title: TCL is not seeing my Western Digital 1TB usb hard drive
Post by: docsulo on October 18, 2010, 04:17:25 PM
Any suggestions?

It works fine on every other distro I have.
Title: Re: TCL is not seeing my Western Digital 1TB usb hard drive
Post by: maro on October 18, 2010, 04:50:55 PM
Are you using boot code 'waitusb=n'? With 'n' a delay in seconds to ensure device recogition at boot time, typical values are 5, 10, etc. I'd suggest to first try it with a higher value and reduce it later (until it fails again).

Furthermore, please provide here the output of fdisk -lu and dmesg | grep -i usb for me to be able to "see" what's going on.
Title: Re: TCL is not seeing my Western Digital 1TB usb hard drive
Post by: docsulo on October 18, 2010, 05:10:53 PM
Maro,

I'm not using the waitusb code.  I didn't think I needed to since I can plug in the USB after the system has booted (yes?)

Now that I did those two outputs (see below), I see the USB drive at /dev/sdb. However when I attempt to mount the device in rox-filer I get the following error:

Quote
Mounting /mnt/sdb1
mount: mounting /dev/sdb1 on /mnt/sdb1 failed: No such device
Mount failed

Done
There was one error.



Output of dmesg | grep -i usb

usbcore: registered new interface driver usbfs
usbcore: registered new interface driver hub
usbcore: registered new device driver usb
ehci_hcd: USB 2.0 'Enhanced' Host Controller (EHCI) Driver
ehci_hcd 0000:00:1d.7: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
ehci_hcd 0000:00:1d.7: USB 2.0 started, EHCI 1.00
hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found
ohci_hcd: USB 1.1 'Open' Host Controller (OHCI) Driver
uhci_hcd: USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver
uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.0: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2
hub 2-0:1.0: USB hub found
uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.1: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 3
hub 3-0:1.0: USB hub found
uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.2: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 4
hub 4-0:1.0: USB hub found
uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.3: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 5
hub 5-0:1.0: USB hub found
Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
USB Mass Storage support registered.
usbcore: registered new interface driver ums-alauda
usbcore: registered new interface driver ums-cypress
usbcore: registered new interface driver ums-freecom
usbcore: registered new interface driver ums-isd200
usbcore: registered new interface driver ums-jumpshot
usbcore: registered new interface driver ums-karma
usbcore: registered new interface driver ums-onetouch
usbcore: registered new interface driver ums-sddr09
usbcore: registered new interface driver ums-sddr55
usbcore: registered new interface driver ums-usbat
usbcore: registered new interface driver berry_charge
usbcore: registered new interface driver appletouch
usbcore: registered new interface driver bcm5974
usbcore: registered new interface driver hiddev
usbcore: registered new interface driver usbhid
usbhid: USB HID core driver
usb 3-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
hub 3-2:1.0: USB hub found
usb 4-2: new low speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
usb 3-2.1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 3
input: Microsft Microsoft Wireless Desktop Receiver 3.1 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.2/usb4/4-2/4-2:1.0/input/input3
microsoft 0003:045E:00F9.0001: input: USB HID v1.11 Keyboard [Microsft Microsoft Wireless Desktop Receiver 3.1] on usb-0000:00:1d.2-2/input0
usb 3-2.1: not running at top speed; connect to a high speed hub
scsi4 : usb-storage 3-2.1:1.0
input: Microsft Microsoft Wireless Desktop Receiver 3.1 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.2/usb4/4-2/4-2:1.1/input/input4
microsoft 0003:045E:00F9.0002: input: USB HID v1.11 Mouse [Microsft Microsoft Wireless Desktop Receiver 3.1] on usb-0000:00:1d.2-2/input1
usbcore: registered new interface driver oss_usb





output of fdisk -lu

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders, total 312581808 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks  Id System
/dev/sda1   *          63      112454       56196  de Unknown
/dev/sda2          112455   143524709    71706127+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda3       305235000   312576704     3670852+ db Unknown
/dev/sda4       143524771   268863839    62669534+  5 Extended
/dev/sda5       143524773   155814434     6144831  82 Linux swap
/dev/sda6       155814498   217375514    30780508+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda7       217375578   268863839    25744131  83 Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/loop0: 0 MB, 8192 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 0 cylinders, total 16 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Disk /dev/loop0 doesn't contain a valid partition table
fdisk: can't open '/dev/ramzswap0': Permission denied

Disk /dev/loop10: 0 MB, 77824 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 0 cylinders, total 152 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Disk /dev/loop10 doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/loop20: 0 MB, 405504 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 0 cylinders, total 792 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Disk /dev/loop20 doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/loop30: 0 MB, 53248 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 0 cylinders, total 104 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Disk /dev/loop30 doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track,
Title: Re: TCL is not seeing my Western Digital 1TB usb hard drive
Post by: gerald_clark on October 18, 2010, 05:19:42 PM
You need to partition thedrive, and create a filesystem on the partition before you can use it.
Title: Re: TCL is not seeing my Western Digital 1TB usb hard drive
Post by: docsulo on October 18, 2010, 05:30:57 PM
Why would I want to partition it?

It's a USB drive full of data.

I am loading tiny core from CD.  I have the TC folder on a linux ext 3 partition.

So everything is fine as far as running TCL goes.   I just can't seem to mount the USB drive and I need to because that is where all the data I use is located (if this operating system is to be of any use to me).
Title: Re: TCL is not seeing my Western Digital 1TB usb hard drive
Post by: maro on October 18, 2010, 06:20:31 PM
I'm not clear whether the device in question was connected at the time when you ran those two commands. So let's be a bit more precise:
(1) boot TC, but keep the device disconnected,
(2) take a snapshot of 'dmesg' (e.g. via dmesg > dmesg_initial),
(3) connect your device and wait 15 seconds,
(4) take another snapshot and find out what has changed (e.g. via dmesg > dmesg_current ; diff -U 0 dmesg_initital dmesg_current),
(5) get some more information: fdisk -lu /dev/sd* ; blkid /dev/sd*,

Please report the result of (4) & (5) here.

If you want to get a better grasp of the timing of the recognition you could do what I just did:

dmesg > dmesg_prev
while [ 1 ] ; do
    date '+%T'
    dmesg > dmesg_now
    ADD=$( diff -U 0 dmesg_prev dmesg_now | sed -e '/^+[^+]/!d' -e 's#^+##' )
    [ -n "$ADD" ] && printf '%s\n' "$ADD"
    mv -f dmesg_now dmesg_prev
    sleep 1
done

In my case with an external USB drive it resulted in:
Code: [Select]
12:54:30
12:54:31
12:54:32
12:54:33
12:54:34
12:54:35
12:54:36
usb 1-6: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 10
scsi6 : usb-storage 1-6:1.0
12:54:37
12:54:38
12:54:39
12:54:40
12:54:41
scsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Maxtor   OneTouch         0125 PQ: 0 ANSI: 4
sd 6:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 0
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] 625142448 512-byte logical blocks: (320 GB/298 GiB)
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 2d 08 00 00
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
 sdb:
12:54:42
 sdb: sdb1
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
As I connected the USB drive at '12:54:30' this indicates to me that I'd have to allow for a delay of ca. 13 seconds to be reasonably safe for the detection to have succeeded. I'd imagine that for booting TC from such a device a lower value might work as well, as some of the time consumed up to the first message is just the spinning up of the disk, and that would go in parallel to the kernel and initrd extraction, hence the respective 'waitusb' value should be below 13 seconds (probably more in the order of 6-7 seconds).


Title: Re: TCL is not seeing my Western Digital 1TB usb hard drive
Post by: gerald_clark on October 18, 2010, 07:39:21 PM
You want to partition the drive because TC does not recgnize unpartitioned drives.
You can manually mount sdb, but TC will not find the tce directory unless it is on a partition.

Why would anybod buy a 1T drive and then not partition it?
Title: Re: TCL is not seeing my Western Digital 1TB usb hard drive
Post by: maro on October 18, 2010, 08:30:51 PM
I'm sorry for having posted reply #5. Who knows I might start having "senior moments".

The important information was already at the very end of reply #2 (I just overlooked it in the "noise" from the loop devices):
Quote
Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track

Thanks to gerald_clark for keeping the "real" troubleshooting on track.

I'll leave reply #5 unchanged as it might be helpful in some other (possibly related) cases.
Title: Re: TCL is not seeing my Western Digital 1TB usb hard drive
Post by: tinypoodle on October 18, 2010, 08:47:20 PM
docsulo,

On a sidenote, but not unimportant, the partition table of /dev/sda appears to be rather unorthodox in possibly more than one aspect. The impact of such might depend on software used to access the disk/partitions. 'testdisk' might possibly help to fix that.
Title: Re: TCL is not seeing my Western Digital 1TB usb hard drive
Post by: docsulo on October 19, 2010, 05:58:20 AM
Why would anybod buy a 1T drive and then not partition it?

I bought the drive when I was running Windows XP and didn't feel the need to partition it.

In any case, I have nearly 1 T of data on the hard drive and would like to access it. 

Is there a way to mount the hard drive or not?
Title: Re: TCL is not seeing my Western Digital 1TB usb hard drive
Post by: tinypoodle on October 19, 2010, 06:50:27 AM
As you claim
Quote
It works fine on every other distro I have.
have a look how exactly those other distros handle it...

You might be able to fix your partition table - or create one if there really isn't any or it is empty - with the help of any software which would be capable to do so, but as you say it is full of data, you could never totally exclude a risk of data loss in such cases.

If I were you I would do some serious in-depth research about software to fix such issues, IMHO this is not only an issue which goes beyond the border of competence of TC but even of Linux.

First thing I would look at would be 'testdisk' http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk and all its rather detailed documentation.

Most upper is also applicable to the partition table of your /dev/sda which looks wrong in more than one aspect.
Title: Re: TCL is not seeing my Western Digital 1TB usb hard drive
Post by: gerald_clark on October 19, 2010, 07:31:55 AM
If this is an ntfs drive you will need to install the ntfs-3g extension.
Then:
mkdir /mnt/sdb
mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdb /mnt/sdb
Title: Re: TCL is not seeing my Western Digital 1TB usb hard drive
Post by: docsulo on October 19, 2010, 08:21:41 AM
If this is an ntfs drive you will need to install the ntfs-3g extension.
Then:
mkdir /mnt/sdb
mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdb /mnt/sdb

Well that definitely moved things in the right direction.

Thank you.

Now I get this:

Quote
NTFS signature is missing.
Failed to mount '/dev/sdb': Invalid argument
The device '/dev/sdb' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS.
Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a
partition (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way around?
mount: mounting /dev/sdb on /mnt/sdb failed: No such device

Note:  This is a 1TB removable USB hard drive.  It was formatted NTFS.  It works fine on Windows XP, Ubunutu and Puppy Linux 5.11.
Title: Re: TCL is not seeing my Western Digital 1TB usb hard drive
Post by: tinypoodle on October 19, 2010, 08:31:15 AM
You could try 'ntfsmount' (contained in ntfsprogs.tcz) instead of ntfs-3g.

Not complying with standards in general has the consequence that it would be hardly predictable how any particular software would handle such a case.
Title: Re: TCL is not seeing my Western Digital 1TB usb hard drive
Post by: docsulo on October 19, 2010, 08:36:04 AM
mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdb /mnt/sdb

Got it to work with this:
sudo ntfs-3g /dev/sdb1 /mnt/sdb

I just changed /dev/sdb to /dev/sdb1 and removed the -t before the ntfs

Why did you have a -t in the command you used?  I see it in the manual at http://www.tuxera.com/community/ntfs-3g-manual - but can't find what it does.
Title: Re: TCL is not seeing my Western Digital 1TB usb hard drive
Post by: tinypoodle on October 19, 2010, 08:44:48 AM
In this case it might be preferable to name the mount point /mnt/sdb1 (do not rename any mount point while anything is mounted on it).

And if you want to go the safe way, until you fix everything it might be preferable to mount read only.
Title: Re: TCL is not seeing my Western Digital 1TB usb hard drive
Post by: docsulo on October 19, 2010, 08:51:26 AM
In this case it might be preferable to name the mount point /mnt/sdb1 (do not rename any mount point while anything is mounted on it).

OK but to create a mount point sdb1 don't I have to create a folder called sdb1?  If I try to do that it asks if I want to overwrite the already existing sdb1 (which is the drive itself I think).

I could call the folder it mounts to anything (ie - windows, NTFS, etc) no?
Title: Re: TCL is not seeing my Western Digital 1TB usb hard drive
Post by: tinypoodle on October 19, 2010, 08:54:46 AM
Theoretically yes, but how particular apps would play along with it is a different issue.

If /mnt/sdb1 already exists you could just mount it there instead of /mnt/sdb
Title: Re: TCL is not seeing my Western Digital 1TB usb hard drive
Post by: docsulo on October 19, 2010, 09:01:09 AM
Theoretically yes, but how particular apps would play along with it is a different issue.

If /mnt/sdb1 already exists you could just mount it there instead of /mnt/sdb

OK that makes sense.

Thanks.
Title: Re: TCL is not seeing my Western Digital 1TB usb hard drive
Post by: gerald_clark on October 19, 2010, 09:12:02 AM
The -t fstype tells mount which mount binary to use.
In this case, '-t ntfs-3g' means use /usr/local/bin/mount.ntfs-3g.
/dev/sdb1 should not work, as /dev/sdb1 does not exist.
Title: Re: TCL is not seeing my Western Digital 1TB usb hard drive
Post by: docsulo on October 19, 2010, 09:36:29 AM
The -t fstype tells mount which mount binary to use.
In this case, '-t ntfs-3g' means use /usr/local/bin/mount.ntfs-3g.
/dev/sdb1 should not work, as /dev/sdb1 does not exist.

Interesting.  Any possibilities on why it is working?
Title: Re: TCL is not seeing my Western Digital 1TB usb hard drive
Post by: tinypoodle on October 19, 2010, 10:17:27 AM
The -t fstype tells mount which mount binary to use.
In this case, '-t ntfs-3g' means use /usr/local/bin/mount.ntfs-3g.
/dev/sdb1 should not work, as /dev/sdb1 does not exist.

Interesting.  Any possibilities on why it is working?

This is a technical forum, not an oracle or prophecy forum; did you run testdisk?

And better make that "appears to be working"
Title: Re: TCL is not seeing my Western Digital 1TB usb hard drive
Post by: docsulo on October 19, 2010, 10:36:42 AM


This is a technical forum, not an oracle or prophecy forum; did you run testdisk?

And better make that "appears to be working"
[/quote]

Haven't run testdisk yet.  Playing around with my mounted drive.  Played two videos, read a pdf and moved some files to a local folder.  So it IS working unless by "appears" you mean I'm seeing things.  And I'm not asking for oracles - someone said it shouldn't work and IT DOES. 

Not sure why people get so snide on these forums.  It's really unappealing and probably accounts for many people just going back to what they already use.
Title: Re: TCL is not seeing my Western Digital 1TB usb hard drive
Post by: tinypoodle on October 19, 2010, 11:36:15 AM
By "appears to be working" I mean there is no guaranty for safe functioning of software accessing this disk and preservation of data.
(That's why I suggested to mount read only, to limit risks)

Unappealing is to persist to ask questions which could not find any answer without the required troubleshooting.
Title: Re: TCL is not seeing my Western Digital 1TB usb hard drive
Post by: docsulo on October 19, 2010, 12:22:48 PM
Unappealing is to persist to ask questions which could not find any answer without the required troubleshooting.

Ugh.

Let's see - I wanted to mount a usb hardrive.

I was told to reformat the drive and create partitions.

NTFS drives automatically have a partition.  

The partition on my drive exists because other operating systems can see it.

Finally I got an answer on how to mount it - after a bunch of irrelevant stuff.

Once I got it to mount and I showed the command I used - I was told it was not possible to mount it using the command I used.

I asked - If it is not possible then why is it mounted then?

Not sure what your issue is and...

I'm not sure what trouble shooting you're suggesting I should do when my drive mounts now (since I now know that I need to have an extension installed in order to mount it).  And if by troubleshooting you mean testdisk - well - I'm not sure why I need testdisk when my partition is intact.  Can you give me a reason or should I just figure out what you mean through more troubleshooting?  But even if you give me a reason why I absolutely need to run testdisk, I can't see how my question of "why is it mounting with that command if it's not possible to mount with that command?" has anything to do with troubleshooting.  But hey that's just me.
Title: Re: TCL is not seeing my Western Digital 1TB usb hard drive
Post by: gerald_clark on October 19, 2010, 12:39:55 PM
NTFS drives do not automatically have a partition.
You are the one who showed us that sdb was unpartitioned.
How did it suddenly sprout a partition, I don't know.
The only conclusion I can come to is that you are not giving
accurate answers to the questions being asked.
Without accurate answers, the recommendations given cannot
be correct.

You were not told to re-format your drive.
Your incomplete and false information led to the true statement
that a drive needs to be partioned and a filesystem created before
TC will offer it for mounting.

I am happy that you now have it working, but will offer no further assistance
because I cannot trust that information you provide is correct and do not wish to
be party to any damage that may occur.
Title: Re: TCL is not seeing my Western Digital 1TB usb hard drive
Post by: tinypoodle on October 19, 2010, 12:52:32 PM
+1   ::)
Title: Re: TCL is not seeing my Western Digital 1TB usb hard drive
Post by: docsulo on October 19, 2010, 01:02:50 PM
NTFS drives do not automatically have a partition.
You are the one who showed us that sdb was unpartitioned.
How did it suddenly sprout a partition, I don't know.
The only conclusion I can come to is that you are not giving
accurate answers to the questions being asked.
Without accurate answers, the recommendations given cannot
be correct.

I realize I should have said that it was NTFS from the start.  That was a mistake that may have sidetracked replies.  But as to the partition - I had no idea that it didn't show a partition when I printed out what was asked of me.  I thought it DID - the drive appeared and therefore I thought it was there (with partition) and just not mounting.

However I did say I formatted it on Windows XP.  An IT friend of mine says:

Quote
You are saying you made this disk under Windows XP, there is NO WAY in windows XP to format a DISK (and not a partition) with NTFS, so you MUST HAVE A PARTITION ON IT. If you dont, you nuked it.

Anyway.  I appreciate you directing me to ntfs-3g.  

Whether you choose to help me with future problems or not is (of course) your choice. Just know that I am the average beginner user (slowly moving to intermediate) of Linux and I will let you know that if you treat the average user like me with the level of condescension your message implies while dealing with someone like myself who doesn't fully understand everything that happens under the Linux hood - then you will most likely lose the interest of the cross-section of the community I represent.   Maybe that's the point.  I don't know.
Title: Re: TCL is not seeing my Western Digital 1TB usb hard drive
Post by: tinypoodle on October 19, 2010, 01:16:46 PM
There are 2 basic probabilities:

1. There is a software bug somewhere which inhibits:
     A: fdisk from correctly recognizing the partitions of both your hard disks
     B: possibly mounting in a standardized way.

In this case it would be a matter of bug reporting.

2. Neither of your two hard disks has a correct partition table.

In this case it would be a matter of correction.

Hacks or workarounds - even if they seem to be successful - do not change anything about upper.
Title: Re: TCL is not seeing my Western Digital 1TB usb hard drive
Post by: docsulo on October 19, 2010, 01:45:45 PM
There are 2 basic probabilities:

1. There is a software bug somewhere which inhibits:
     A: fdisk from correctly recognizing the partitions of both your hard disks
     B: possibly mounting in a standardized way.

From the second printout it looks like fdisk works fine.

Quote
2. Neither of your two hard disks has a correct partition table.

Here's the full printout (it looks like I just didn't wait for the whole report to complete before I copied and pasted the first time) - I don't know what all the "loop" stuff is - can you direct me to a resource where I can find out: 

tc@box:/mnt/sda7$ fdisk -lu

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders, total 312581808 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks  Id System
/dev/sda1   *          63      112454       56196  de Unknown
/dev/sda2          112455   143524709    71706127+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda3       305235000   312576704     3670852+ db Unknown
/dev/sda4       143524771   268863839    62669534+  5 Extended
/dev/sda5       143524773   155814434     6144831  82 Linux swap
/dev/sda6       155814498   217375514    30780508+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda7       217375578   268863839    25744131  83 Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/loop0: 0 MB, 8192 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 0 cylinders, total 16 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Disk /dev/loop0 doesn't contain a valid partition table
fdisk: can't open '/dev/ramzswap0': Permission denied

Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks  Id System
/dev/sdb1              63  1953520064   976760001   7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/loop10: 0 MB, 77824 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 0 cylinders, total 152 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Disk /dev/loop10 doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/loop20: 0 MB, 405504 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 0 cylinders, total 792 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Disk /dev/loop20 doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/loop30: 0 MB, 53248 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 0 cylinders, total 104 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Disk /dev/loop30 doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/loop40: 0 MB, 233472 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 0 cylinders, total 456 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Disk /dev/loop40 doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/loop50: 0 MB, 196608 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 0 cylinders, total 384 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Disk /dev/loop50 doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/loop60: 0 MB, 335872 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 0 cylinders, total 656 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Disk /dev/loop60 doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/loop70: 0 MB, 352256 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 0 cylinders, total 688 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Disk /dev/loop70 doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/loop80: 0 MB, 327680 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 0 cylinders, total 640 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Disk /dev/loop80 doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/loop90: 0 MB, 106496 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 0 cylinders, total 208 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Disk /dev/loop90 doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/loop100: 0 MB, 32768 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 0 cylinders, total 64 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Disk /dev/loop100 doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/loop110: 0 MB, 16384 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 0 cylinders, total 32 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Disk /dev/loop110 doesn't contain a valid partition table
Title: Re: TCL is not seeing my Western Digital 1TB usb hard drive
Post by: gerald_clark on October 19, 2010, 01:52:35 PM
I said the information was inaccurate.  I did not say you were lying or hiding anything.
Your attitude is offensive.
Title: Re: TCL is not seeing my Western Digital 1TB usb hard drive
Post by: tinypoodle on October 19, 2010, 02:23:16 PM
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You are saying you made this disk under Windows XP, there is NO WAY in windows XP to format a DISK (and not a partition) with NTFS, so you MUST HAVE A PARTITION ON IT. If you dont, you nuked it.

First you make everyone focus on what your friend calls in a different linguistic approach "nuked" - which is exactly what we all here tried to tell you since you posted your output of 'fdisk -l'.
If you printed it intentionally or involuntarily wrong does not make any difference from a technical viewpoint, we have to rely on the info provided as it is given.
The missing bit of info was (mis)leading into a totally different direction and priority.
You gave the impression that a "nuked" partition table was at the root of the matter, and not how to possibly mount an invisible partition.

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I mean do you honestly think I posted over 22 posts in a 24-hour period because I'm bored and wanted to hide things from you.  Give me a break.
An attitude of such selfishness when you see people trying to help you over a thread of so far 32 posts, stressing your investment of time and energy rather than that of those who try on a voluntary base and unpaid for such to help you to the best of their ability in combination with hints of hostility and rudeness will not get you far anywhere where free tech support is provided out of a purely idealistic motivation.

Like gerald_clark said, I am also happy that you now have it working (and even more that it appears that there is nothing wrong with your disk).

Remains the partition table of your /dev/sda which in accordance to the language of your friend appears to be "semi-nuked", I have already pointed to 'testdisk' to attempt to fix that.
Title: Re: TCL is not seeing my Western Digital 1TB usb hard drive
Post by: docsulo on October 19, 2010, 02:40:43 PM
Remains the partition table of your /dev/sda which in accordance to the language of your friend appears to be "semi-nuked", I have already pointed to 'testdisk' to attempt to fix that.

Well that makes sense.  I thought you meant to use testdisk on the removable drive.


Title: Re: TCL is not seeing my Western Digital 1TB usb hard drive
Post by: maro on October 19, 2010, 04:12:12 PM
Hmm, rather interesting what has come out in this thread over night (at my end of the world). I can't resist to express my agreement with tinypoodle and gerald_clark: If up to three of the more experienced users in this forum are offering their time in provinding help they need all the details. If we would have known (a) about the existence of the '/dev/sdb1' file system, and (b) that it is of type NTFS this whole thread would have been over by reply #3.

I fail to see how anyone of the "helpers" (or the wider Linux community represented through their many forums) can be seen as "responsible" for this particular unfortunate sequence of responses. I might not go as far as some of the suggestions made here, but in the absense of correct and complete information we'll always end up with "garbage in, garbage out". Enough said ....

So in summary (and as a mental note to myself): always ask the user for both fdisk -lu /dev/[hs]d* and blkid /dev/[hs]d* This should increase the chances to validate the information (a bit like a "belts and braces" approach) and minimise the "noise" level.

And finally, the '/dev/loop*' entries reported by 'fdisk -l' are the consequence of loop-mounted extensions.
Title: Re: TCL is not seeing my Western Digital 1TB usb hard drive
Post by: docsulo on October 19, 2010, 04:50:28 PM
Thanks Maro.  The loop thing had me baffled.

As to holding anyone responsible for my errors - I certainly don't and I apologized for not saying it was NTFS from the beginning.  That would have helped a lot.

I also appreciate the help - a lot.