I have completely taken Windows (FINALLY) off of my box and now only have RH 9.0. I did however leave a partion on my primary drive that is a backup of important file. It is in vfat format however when I try to mount it I get the following.



root@ileana-isabella root]# mount -t vfat /dev/hda4 /mnt/storage/
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hda4,
or too many mounted file systems
(aren't you trying to mount an extended partition,
instead of some logical partition inside?)

[root@ileana-isabella root]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 30.7 GB, 30735581184 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3736 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 76 610438+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 77 1351 10241437+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda3 1352 2371 8193150 83 Linux
/dev/hda4 2372 3736 10964362+ f Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5 2372 3136 6144831 83 Linux
/dev/hda6 3137 3455 2562336 83 Linux
/dev/hda7 3456 3563 867478+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda8 3564 3664 811251 83 Linux
/dev/hda9 3665 3728 514048+ 82 Linux swap

Disk /dev/hdb: 2111 MB, 2111864832 bytes
64 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1023 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 4032 * 512 = 2064384 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdb1 * 1 1022 2060320+ b Win95 FAT32
[root@ileana-isabella root]#

Is there anyway to mount a former extended windows partition?


Thanks for the help.

hda4 is NOT a valid filesystem partition, is just holds all the other logical partitions. mounting it does not make sense. you might want to change the fstype of the partiion in cfdisk from f to 5, which is the code for a generic extended partition.

It doesn't matter if its a generic extended or Win95 extended partition. linux works with either. However. you can't mount extended partitions.

The real problem is there isn't a windows logical partition on the hda HDD. You might have overwritten it during the install process. Are you refering to the secondary drive hdb?