Sadly my desktop which has been running PC-BSD 7 has basically died. I have downloaded a live BSD CD which might or might not repair it from frenzy.

Still, I have decided not to keep using this desktop anymore.

The hard drive has so many errors on it that the installation media can't even find the partition anymore. I'm pretty sure that the data is there and could be recovered.

It has had problems with file corruption before that were getting worse. The hard drive itself is a new SATA 2 from Western Digital that is in good shape. I installed that along with a promise SATA 2 card so that my motherboard could read it. The computer itself is an extremely old Dell that only has 768 MB of RAM and only a 1.2 GB CPU.

It came with Windows 98 originally installed. That is how old it was.

I plan on putting the hard drive into a cage and then seeing if Fedora 11 can read and write stuff from it. This hard drive stores most of my data because my fedora partition on my laptop isn't that large in size.

So, how well does Fedora 11 read and write the BSD file system? If help is needed, what utility is best for it?

Did it use the UFS filesystem? You could try modprobing the "ufs" kernel module.

This person needed to rebuild his RHEL kernel first:
http://marc-abramowitz.com/archives/...ions-in-linux/

Yes, it does use UFS. In Dolphin, the volume even shows up as UFS but then simply doesn't open. I get an error message saying that it has bad blocks or is ufs and so will not open.

modprobe ufs shows nothing.

[root@RSC-Fedora etc]# modprobe ufs
WARNING: Deprecated config file /etc/modprobe.conf, all config files belong into /etc/modprobe.d/.
[root@RSC-Fedora etc]# cd /
[root@RSC-Fedora /]# grep -i ufs /boot/config-2.6.31.8-0.1-desktop
grep: /boot/config-2.6.31.8-0.1-desktop: No such file or directory
[root@RSC-Fedora /]# grep -i ufs /boot/
[root@RSC-Fedora /]# mount /dev/sdb1
mount: can't find /dev/sdb1 in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab
[root@RSC-Fedora /]# mount /mnt/sdb1
mount: can't find /mnt/sdb1 in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab
[root@RSC-Fedora /]# mount /media/sdb1
mount: can't find /media/sdb1 in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab
[root@RSC-Fedora /]# modprobe ufs
WARNING: Deprecated config file /etc/modprobe.conf, all config files belong into /etc/modprobe.d/.
[root@RSC-Fedora /]#

It reads and writes NTFS no problem after the root password is entered. Is there some rpm script somewhere that will enable this type of file system to be handled fully?

the module probably got loaded since there were no error messages. you can check the loaded modules by typing: lsmod | grep ufs

If the ufs module shows up, you should be good to go.

To see if a module is available on the system (instead of doing a grep or find in the /boot directory), use: modprobe -l "*ufs*"

To mount the directory:

mount -t ufs /dev/sdb1 /some_existing_mount_point

your mount command is only complaining that it cannot automatically mount it because it has no knowledge of it; ie. no entry in /etc/fstab

If the partition wasn't in fstab, how does dolphin see it? It says Volume (ufs). Before removing the UNIX drive, I did get PC-BSD to boot and shutdown normally one last time.

The frenzy live BSD CD-Rom was also able to read the data without incident.

Then I get the weird warning message.

An error occurred while accessing 'Volume (ufs)', the system responded:
org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.UnknownFailure: mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb1, missing codepage, or helper program, or other error.

In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try dmesg | tail or so

It also works for the reiser partition which is also on the same physical SATA II drive and the NTFS Vista partition on the computer's native hard drive. The reiser volume reads flawlessly. The NTFS Vista partition wants you to be root to mount it & then doesn't complain.

some file managers will probe for all available media even those not listed in /etc/fstab, and dolphin must have read the partition table to figure out that that partition was ufs. If it were a compatible partition, it may automatically mount it for you if you double-clicked it. This is pretty much a guess since I don't use dolphin.

But, if you're mounting it manually, then you need to either make an entry in /etc/fstab, or provide all the information to mount it.

I tried to use the PC-BSD DVD to repair any mistakes in the partition by running upgrade/repair. It actually booted up after I figured out that the mountroot wasn't quite right and it had to manually be told where to go. ufs:da0s1a.journala not ufs:da0s1a

This means that the UFS filesystem can actually boot like it is the world's biggest flash drive and run UNIX.

The reiser partition which looked like it could work can only be read, not written to. I may have to go in as root and see if I can do something with that. Linux not reading UNIX makes sense, but Linux should be able to read and write to other types of Linux, especially those with an older filesystem.

perhaps there were errors on the file-system and that's why it comes up as readonly. Did you try fsck?

Yes, I actually tried to fix the whole thing. I used the PC-BSD DVD to repair the partition. I actually got it to boot up and update off of the external drive. After verifying that it worked, Fedora 11 still couldn't access the partition. When it boots off of the external drive, you have to tell it to use ufs:<harddrive name>.journala not just ufs:<harddrive name> by itself.

You would think that if Fedora can read and write NTFS files, it should also be able to do UNIX files without a hitch. I just wish that there was some RPM application that would allow me to do this.

The reiser partition on the external drive reads and writes without a problem now. I logged in as root, used konqueror to get to the disk, joined it to the Everybody user and group, gave everyone read, write, and run rights and then told Fedora to apply all of those to all folders and subfolders. After close to an hour, it worked. My external drive in secure so its all safe.