been reading forums and how-tos and just not having any luck.

my old motherboard died, and I was left with two RAID1 mirrored drives. unfortunately i did not set up the old box, and do not recall if it was hardware raid on the MB or software raid. my friend was previously able to pull stuff off of it, but i'm having the worst time.

when i try to mount it, it says it can't find the file system. when I use mdadm to examine it, it doesn't provide alot of info.

klobue@iggy:/media$ sudo fdisk -l
[sudo] password for klobue:

Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250000000000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30394 cylinders, total 488281250 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000aff69

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 480229375 240113664 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 480231422 488280063 4024321 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 480231424 488280063 4024320 82 Linux swap / Solaris
klobue@iggy:/media$
klobue@iggy:/media$ sudo mdadm --examine /dev/sda2
/dev/sda2:
MBR Magic : aa55
Partition[0] : 8048640 sectors at 2 (type 82)
klobue@iggy:/media$ sudo cat /proc/mdstat
Personalities :
unused devices: <none>
klobue@iggy:/media$ sudo mount -t auto -v /dev/sda2 /media/suse
mount: you didn't specify a filesystem type for /dev/sda2
I will try all types mentioned in /etc/filesystems or /proc/filesystems
Trying ext3
Trying ext4
Trying fuseblk
mount: you must specify the filesystem type


thanks for the help for something simple

I will try all types mentioned in /etc/filesystems or /proc/filesystems
Trying ext3
Trying ext4
Trying fuseblk
mount: you must specify the filesystem type

Your kernel is set up for ext3, & ext4; maybe you have reiserfs, xfs, jfs in the kernel modules. swapon & swapoff should work on the swap partition. That will at least verify it can read the platter. But there's all sorts of encrypted partitions possible

I would not expect that to work as the output you posted from the fdisk command shows sda2 as an Extended partition. Change it to sda1 as that is the only Linux partition. I see the mount point is /media/suse. Are you using Opensuse or the older Suse Linux which used the reiserfs?

/dev/sda1 is the current bootable partiaion in a brand new box that i just built.
i'm trying to get the data off the drive i connected via USB, so I thought that's why it showed up as extended. but the command showed it tried ext3 and ext4 but no dice right?
suse was the old linux kernel of the old box that's on this old drive, which has some data i need off of it.

i don't know much about other linux filesystem types. but i know it was bootable, and had it's own suse kernel about 5 years ago. but this is also the primary drive from an old RAID1

Suse Linux used reiserfs for years until they decided in late 2006 to switch to ext3 so I would try that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReiserFS

The USB drive should be /dev/sdb which is not being displayed in the output of the fdisk command.

The output of the lsusb command will show if the USB adapter is recognised as well as the output of the dmesg command. The later will also show if the drive is recognised.

not quite sure how to read the below, but the logitech is my mouse.

yaneck thank you i will also try reiserf.

klobue@iggy:/media$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 008 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 413c:2107 Dell Computer Corp.
Bus 007 Device 002: ID 046d:c526 Logitech, Inc. Nano Receiver
klobue@iggy:/media$

actually not reading the sata to usb, thank you formentioning, i thought sda2 was it but it's not. will try and find drivers. but just in case is there anything special for usb to sata adapters and a true sata hdd?

also checked that a regular usb stick worked, and it has no issues.

Looks like your USB drive isn't being recognised. Pull it out, then plug it back in and run these commands - post the output in [code] tags

thank you! i'm googling the error but hopefully you understand it. after reading some things, i just wanted to mention I don't need to write to this HD just read from it.

klobue@iggy:~$ dmesg | tail -n 15
[40657.873066] scsi9 : usb-storage 2-5:1.0
[40658.873586] scsi 9:0:0:0: Direct-Access USB DISK 2.0 0403 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS
[40658.875004] sd 9:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
[40658.877445] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdb] 3981312 512-byte logical blocks: (2.03 GB/1.89 GiB)
[40658.878439] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[40658.878442] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 43 00 00 00
[40658.879438] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page found
[40658.879441] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[40658.883438] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page found
[40658.883441] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[40658.884327] sdb: sdb1
[40658.886813] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page found
[40658.886821] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[40658.886823] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
[41921.660526] usb 2-5: USB disconnect, device number 4
klobue@iggy:~$ sudo parted -l
Model: ATA ST3250318AS (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 250GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 246GB 246GB primary ext4 boot
2 246GB 250GB 4121MB extended
5 246GB 250GB 4121MB logical linux-swap(v1)


klobue@iggy:~$ df -hT
Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 ext4 226G 3.7G 211G 2% /
udev devtmpfs 1.9G 4.0K 1.9G 1% /dev
tmpfs tmpfs 380M 804K 379M 1% /run
none tmpfs 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock
none tmpfs 1.9G 148K 1.9G 1% /run/shm
klobue@iggy:~$

rebooted. plugged it back in and BAM it came up.

THANK you guys for pointing out it wasn't reading the usb.

OK, as suspected you were working on the wrong disk. No real error there, but I would suspect power. How are you connecting the drive - does the enclosure have external power, or only the USB cable ?. Does it have 2 USB cables ? - if so connect them to 2 different (USB) controllers (I actually use two separate machines to ensure sufficient power in such cases).

We are past the first hurdle...

Now post the output of the gpart -l or fdisk -l commands. Another command that might provide some additional information is the file command.

file -s /dev/sdb1 (or whatever partition you want to determine its file system etc)

apologies for not being clear. with all the suggestions after realizing it wasn't reading the adapter at all, i rebooted. after the reboot, and reconnecting it, it worked. it mounted on it's own and i was pulling the data all night. I'll work on the other 3 drives for the rest of this week.
might be time to purchase some type of nas enclosure

you guys are awesome, thanks for sticking with this newbie and being polite!