My in-law just gave me a Compaq Proliant 3000 server cuz his company was chucking it (bonus for me!!!). Here's the specs:

It has an Array Controller and came with two 4GB SCSI drives.

I was able to install Linux (7.1) with relatively no problem. It's loaded into the first SCSI drive ( /dev/sda1 for root (/) and /dev/sda2 for swap) - I did the partitiong manually myself thru fdisk in linux. The installation went well, except everytime I reboot, I need to use my boot disk, or else it doesn't recognize a bootable disk (may be you can help figure out why that is...this is my first time working working SCSI devices).

Anyhow...

I had another 4GB SCSI lying around so I plugged that one in there (not in with array, just on its own on the second SCSI controller). But I want more storage capacity in this server, so I plugged a 40GB IDE hard drive on the same IDE controller that supports the CD ROM.

Using fdisk (in Linux), I partitioned these newly added HD. I assume partitioning them using fdisk also formats them as Linux (ext2), right? After making all the partitioning, I display partition table on each HD and I see that partition I created and indicates that they are of type Linux.

And so, I make entries into my FSTAB to make these new partition mounted on boot up. Here's the new entry I made:

/dev/sdb1...../u01....ext2....defaults...1..1
/dev/sdc2...../u02....ext2.....defaults...1..1
/dev/hda1..../u03....ext2.....defaults....1..1

However, when I reboot I get this message for every one of these new partition:

"The superbock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2 file system. If the device is valid and really contains an ext2 file system (" and not swap of nfs or something else ") then the superblock is corrupt. You might want to try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock."

It wants me to try this:
e2fsck -b 8193 <device>

I try that and the regular fsck, but I get:
Bad magic number in superblock while trying to open <device>

followed by the previous paragraph.

The previous paragraph tries to verify that the device "really contains an ext2 file system": It should, especially after partitioning it with fdisk in Linux, right? or is there some "format" command I am totally missing?

Any leads will totally be appreciated.

After you partition with fdisk (I'd recommend cfdisk) you need to create an ext2 file system on that partition (format).

Run this for each partition with the exception to swap (mkswap) partitions.

I tell ya I love this site!

I never heard of "mke2fs" before...I guess this was because I always depended on System Commander to do all the partitioning for me. And now that I have freed myself from it, I'm starting to find out all of the what's actaully happening...

Thanks crabby...I'm trying mke2fs right now...