Hard Drives

cthomas · 02-16-2007, 06:10 PM

I have three externial drives: Two of them are seagate ST3320620AS and the other one is a Western Didigtal WDC-WD800JD-00LS.

In Yast my externial drives are seen like this:

Drive Size Type Mount
/dev/sda 298GB ST3320620AS
/dev/sda1 298GB Linux native

/dev/sdb 74.5GB WDC-WD800JD-00LS
/dev/sdb1 74.5GB SFS

/dev/sdc 298GB ST3320620AS

Would some body explain to me the meaning of what I'm seeing in Yast? From the looks of this none of the drive are mounted. Right?

saikee · 02-16-2007, 06:55 PM

The information says exactly what you have got; 3 disks sda, sdb and sdc. 1 partition each in the first 2 and none in the last.

Whether the partition has been mounted depends on the Linux and also if the each partition has been formatted and contain files inside.

Take your sdc fro example. Linux saw nothing, no partition table. Therefore the disk is possibly a brand new raw disk. What is the point of mount it? If Linux mount a partition it means you and Linux can see files inside.

Linux do not mount a disk. It is always a partition to be mounted. You can mount any partition manually. First you make a directory in the filing tree and the standard mounting point is /mnt.

Thus if you want to mount the two partitions manually, assuming the Linux isn't doing it for you, you just type terminal commands

Code:

sudo mkdir /mnt/sda1
sudo mkdir /mnt/sdb1
sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1
sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/sdb1

When you format you always format a "device" which should not be mounted.

cthomas · 02-17-2007, 10:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by saikee

The information says exactly what you have got; 3 disks sda, sdb and sdc. 1 partition each in the first 2 and none in the last.

Whether the partition has been mounted depends on the Linux and also if the each partition has been formatted and contain files inside.

Take your sdc fro example. Linux saw nothing, no partition table. Therefore the disk is possibly a brand new raw disk. What is the point of mount it? If Linux mount a partition it means you and Linux can see files inside.

Linux do not mount a disk. It is always a partition to be mounted. You can mount any partition manually. First you make a directory in the filing tree and the standard mounting point is /mnt.

Thus if you want to mount the two partitions manually, assuming the Linux isn't doing it for you, you just type terminal commands

Code:

sudo mkdir /mnt/sda1
sudo mkdir /mnt/sdb1
sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1
sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/sdb1

When you format you always format a "device" which should not be mounted.

So when I put in a brand new disk. It will show up something like this:/dev/sdc (sda, sdb, sdc, sde) 298GB ST3320620AS. The next step is to create a partition/s on it. And then it will show up like: /dev/sda 298GB ST3320620AS; the raw drive
/dev/sda1 298GB Linux native
The next step is to format the drivre. If I format the drive with ext3 it will give me a Linux native (83). Right?

What do you mean by this. "When you format you always format a "device" which should not be mounted."

And what is SFS?

michaelk · 02-17-2007, 11:16 AM

83 linux native is a partition ID which is different from filesystem type i.e ext2. You specify the ID when the drive is partition. sfs (Secure Filesystem) is an encrypted filesystem but do not know how it works.