Cant mount IDE or USB hard drives [SOLVED]

[Willbo]

I'm running TC 2.2 from usb on a laptop and i'm having problems mounting some of my hard drives...

I have one 80gb internal drive that is partitioned into 2gb and 78gb partitions... both are ntfs i think.. [one has xp one has free dos].

I also have one 500gb external USB hard drive that is usb 1.1, i think. Plus my usb pendrive which contains TC.

The TC mount tool tells me i have the following thingies...
hda1
hda2
hda5
hdc
sda1
sdb1

The only partitions i can  mount are hda1 [freedos] hdc [dvd rw] and sbd1 [my usb drive where im running TC from]

Plus when i take my TC on the road, it has similar problems, although i cant give too much information because i don't know exactly what is in all the other computers i have tried to use.

My question are these;

What are these extra mount points? I seem to have more mount points than drives / partitions...

Why am i unable to mount these drives?

Any help would be greatly appreciated...

[alu]

extra mount points: your partitions have been recognized in /dev, but not all where mounted in /mount (even if the mount point is already ready for them, that's why you see the mount points also for the partitions that have not been mounted yet).

ntfs: in order to mount ntfs partitions, you need the ntfs-3g extension that you can download and install with appbrowser; then you can mount the ntfs partitions (read-write).

[Lee]

Someone please correct me if I've missed an easy solution, but as I understand it

1) Mounting an NTFS filesystem with the ntfs-3g extension requires that you specify the filesystem type as "ntfs-3g" instead of "ntfs"

Code: [Select]

sudo mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/whatever /mnt/whatever
2) Because of #1 above, the mount tool doesn't handle this (it wants to use "ntfs") so, you have to use the command line.

This was not evident to me from the .info for the ntfs-3g extension.  Not a biggie for me, but for those not comfortable with the command line it could be an issue.

[Jason W]

Though it is clearly documented in the ntfs-3g manual - http://www.ntfs-3g.org/manual.html  - I added the basic instructions in the info file.

TC by default handles ntfs as read only by the filesystems-2.6.29.1 driver, and that is a good default behavior.  Probably better to mount ntfs as read only unless the user is knowingly mounting as rw by means of ntfs-3g.

Meaning that a check for ntfs-3g availability could be done to allow automatic mounting of ntfs as ntfs-3g when is installed, but better not to go that route.

[Willbo]

Thanks for your quick responses! 

I have installed and successfully used "ntfs-3g" in the command line to mount some of the partitions... but... Still some issues [in bold]

extra mount points: your partitions have been recognized in /dev, but not all where mounted in /mount (even if the mount point is already ready for them, that's why you see the mount points also for the partitions that have not been mounted yet).

I'm really sorry, I'm sure it's frustrating for you guys, but I cannot understand this... Could we try again with finger puppets or something!?   

I still don't know where hda2 comes from... I am unable to mount it... "Invalid argument. The device doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS"

What the hell is this hda2??? As far as I know, my IDE hard drive has only 2 partitions... hda1 and hda5 [Don't know what happened to hda3 and hda4, but never mind... ]

ntfs: in order to mount ntfs partitions, you need the ntfs-3g extension that you can download and install with appbrowser; then you can mount the ntfs partitions (read-write).

1) Mounting an NTFS filesystem with the ntfs-3g extension requires that you specify the filesystem type as "ntfs-3g" instead of "ntfs"

Code: [Select]

sudo mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/whatever /mnt/whatever2) Because of #1 above, the mount tool doesn't handle this (it wants to use "ntfs") so, you have to use the command line.

Ok, If I have understood this correctly...

I must have the "ntfs 3g" extension installed and mount / unmount my NTFS drives from the command line. The mount tool will not do this. Is that right?

TC by default handles ntfs as read only by the filesystems-2.6.29.1 driver, and that is a good default behavior.  Probably better to mount ntfs as read only unless the user is knowingly mounting as rw by means of ntfs-3g.

Does this mean that TC should be able to mount and read ntfs partitions without "ntfs 3g"

Because I can't mount or read [see] anything from any of these NTFS drives... [without using "ntfs 3g" and the command line thingy]

Actually, that would be ideal... I  would really like to mount my partitions without writing privileges.

The reason is this; if i mess up any of the computers on which I happen to use my bootable USB TC, I'll be in big trouble!!

And not just with the wife!! 

Thanks again.

[bmarkus]

I still don't know where hda2 comes from... I am unable to mount it... "Invalid argument. The device doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS"

What the hell is this hda2??? As far as I know, my IDE hard drive has only 2 partitions... hda1 and hda5 [Don't know what happened to hda3 and hda4, but never mind... ]

By definition number of primary (physical) partitions on a hard disk are limited to 4. Extended partition is used to overcome this limit and to offer more partitions. One physical partion out of the four must be defined as virtual, than this virtual has to be partioned. This is why partitions hosted on extended are numbered from 5. Extended partition itself is just a container for real partitions.

In your case you have one primary (hda1) and one virtual (hda5 on hda2). This is why hda3 and hda4 missing and hda2 is not mountable.

[Willbo]

Thanks very much. That was very helpful.

So that just leaves my other questions...

1. Is it true that in order to mount / unmount NTFS partitions, I must have the "ntfs 3g" extension installed and mount / unmount my NTFS drives from the command line?? [as the mount tool cannot not do this]

2. Can TC mount and read ntfs partitions without the "ntfs 3g" extension, even if it is just read-only mode?

3. What is the best way to mount NTFS partitions in read-only mode?

Thanks in advance.

[alu]

in order to mount ntfs partitions read-only, you need to download and install via appbrowser the filesystems-2.6.29.1-tinycore extension. ntfs-3g is for rw access

[Willbo]

Well i guess with that you have answered pretty much all my questions...

Thx!

My confusion [or one of my confusions] was thinking that "filesystems-2.6.29.1-tinycore" was installed by default.

I am now able to mount NTFS partitions as read-only using the extension "filesystems-2.6.29.1-tinycore" and the mount tool.

I can also mount NTFS partitions as read / write by using the extension "ntfs 3g" and the command line.

So i am very happy... Thank you all for your speedy, patient and clear help.

Willbo

PS If i have still got it wrong please correct me, not just for my sake but for anyone reading this too.. Thx   :-)

[^thehatsrule^]

A generic way for mount something read-only is to pass -r or -o ro as options to mount (or alternatively setting options in fstab)

[curaga]

While possible to use ntfs-3g in read-only mode, it is slower than the in-kernel driver.