I have 3 SCSI drives that got something wrong with them ( I think the FAT is messed up). They were part of an NT server. I have them set up on an scsi enclosure and converted the scsi output to firewire and plug them into my FC5.

When I do fdisk -l, i get the following:

Disk /dev/sda: 36.4 GB, 36401479680 bytes
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 34715 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 = 1048576 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 2001 2048224+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 2001 69423 69040629 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.

when I do try to mount them I get the following: (I use ntfs-3g to mount my ntfs drives. my kernel version does not have built in ntfs)

-bash-3.1# ntfs-3g /dev/sda /mnt/windows
Failed to startup volume: Invalid argument
Failed to mount '/dev/sda': Invalid argument
The device '/dev/sda' doesn't have a valid NTFS.
Maybe you selected the wrong device? Or the whole disk instead of a
partition (e.g. /dev/hda, not /dev/hda1)? Or the other way around?
-bash-3.1# ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/windows
Failed to startup volume: Invalid argument
Failed to mount '/dev/sda1': Invalid argument
The device '/dev/sda1' doesn't have a valid NTFS.
Maybe you selected the wrong device? Or the whole disk instead of a
partition (e.g. /dev/hda, not /dev/hda1)? Or the other way around?
-bash-3.1# ntfs-3g /dev/sda2 /mnt/windows
Failed to startup volume: Invalid argument
Failed to mount '/dev/sda2': Invalid argument
The device '/dev/sda2' doesn't have a valid NTFS.
Maybe you selected the wrong device? Or the whole disk instead of a
partition (e.g. /dev/hda, not /dev/hda1)? Or the other way around?

Is there a way to either mount these dev and read the files or is there a way to copy the files withour mounting any dev (something like DD)?

Any help?

You say you have 3 drives, but fdisk shows 1. Tell us more about the configuration--are they in a RAID array? Were they in a RAID array earlier?

In your data dump, the first entry makes sense--you cannot mount a disk-only a partition. But then it is curious that the attempt to mount a partition gives a similar error. (I'm not familiar with ntfs-3g, so no help there.) I think my first question may be the clue.

DD will read the raw data on the drives, but not in any friendly format

As a matter of fact, in the IBM server that they used to be, they were set up as RAID. it is showing the logical partitions not the actual device. I can run some stuff on them if you tell what!

when I plug them in, they come up as good drives but as RAW drive. I think the partition table on them is toast that's why it cannot see anything on the logical drive. I don't know if I can either create a new partition table without losing any data or I make a image file out of the whole thing (with DD which as you said is not easy to work with) and then make a partition table on the image file.

(ntfs-3g is just like mount -t ntfs /dev/... /mnt/..., I use it because I cannot find the correct ntfs module for my version of kernel (2.6.18.2200.fc5)

Thanks,

Sorry, I have no info on how RAID uses the individual drives. I suggest you Google for a specification.
I would assume that it depends also on what kind of RAID was running. It is liekly that a given file is scattered over all three drives.