Help: Unable to mount USB HDD now [Solved]

[libretto]

I have a USB HDD(1TB/FAT32) used to be able to mount it under TC as /mnt/sda1.
But after using this with XP now I cann't mount it under TC anymore and it also shows up as /mnt/sda2 even thought this is the only USB device connected, when try to mount it it'll say "no such device" also when i check this drive it is reported as a NTFS format instead of FAT32.

Any suggestions ?
FYI the HDD should be a FAT32.

[bmarkus]

Check drive partitions with

sudo fdisk /dev/sda

and post result.

[libretto]

Hi bmarkus,
This is the result:

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 121601.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
   (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)
Command  (m for help):

And I think 2) is my case.
Thanks

[bmarkus]

One more thing. In fdisk prompt please print the partition layout hitting the 'p' key and post this output. It was missing in my previous mail.

[libretto]

bmarkus,

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
55 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xe8900690

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb2               1      121601   976760001    7  HPFS/NTFS

[bmarkus]

It shows that on the HDD there is only 1 partition, which is the second physical partition and it is formatted to NTFS.

Install filesystems-2.6.29.1-tinycore.tcz extension, it will provide read only support to the NTFS partition. For read-write you need ntfs-3g

[libretto]

It should be a FAT32 partition. It changes into NTFS somehow after XP crash, notice this after unable to connect to TC. FYI(I remember reading somewhere this could happen when XP crash or something)

Did all that before posting for help

Install filesystems-2.6.29.1-tinycore.tcz extension, it will provide read only support to the NTFS partition. For read-write you need ntfs-3g

[bmarkus]

You can try to edit table manually and change file system type to FAT.

Just a side note, formatting a 1TB drive to FAT is not a good practice. Even if you can access it as a FAT partition, there may be hidden corruption.

I would forget now TC and would use a recovery tool on WINDOWS which works in r/o mode.

[libretto]

I cann't reformat this cause it's got 700GB of stuff in it and I don't have another 1TB drive to back this up. Is there a way to change file system type without formatting ?

[bmarkus]

I cann't reformat this cause it's got 700GB of stuff in it and I don't have another 1TB drive to back this up. Is there a way to change file system type without formatting ?

Where do you see reformat? What I adviced to use a recovery tool which is normally works in R/O mode without writing anything to the disk to avoid coruupting it and to make use of other tools or different parameters possible.

Look for FinalData, EasyRecovery, etc.

[libretto]

Any suggestions on the recovery tool ? Norton.... ? Also did

XP drive recovery error property/tools/error checking

but no errors found.

[libretto]

Will give EasyRecovery and FinalData a try.

[bmarkus]

I used Norton a long time ago when it destroyed my drive writing back wrong changes

My personal favourite is FinalData2.

[libretto]

Never try any of those before. Looks like I got some reading to do before proceeding any further.

[libretto]

Any linux tools I can use ? Tying to stay away from MS.